





■~^'- 



x-. ^ ^. 



^^''%- Vt 






V- ^\ 



/"""^'^ >^ ^'f^' 



cP^. 



"^^ ,.\ 






'.V^^ 






<o- 



,xV 



V' 



.^'^^ 



.->• 



^*■~^ 






.% 









rO^ s 






o>' 



.^,\^ 





'/- 


\ ^' 


// 


C" 




,». <' 


•^ 






%-<■. 






^^^ 


%'^" 



v^-. 




V- %my^ 












flbettUl's Englfsb ttexta 



THE SKETCH BOOK 
OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT, 

BY 

WASHINGTON IRVING 



" I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere spectator 
of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts, which, 
niethinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene." 

Burton. 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY CHARLES ADDISON DAWSON, PH.D., 
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, 
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, SYRACUSE, N. Y. 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 



This series of books includes in complete editions i 
those masterpieces of English Literature that are best 
adapted for the use of schools and colleges. The edi- 
tors of the several volumes are chosen for their special 
qualifications in connection with the texts issued imder 
their individual supervision, but familiarity with the 
practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound 
scholarship, characterizes the editing of every book in 
the series. 

In connection with each text, a critical and histori-"* 
cal introduction, including a sketch of the life of the 
author and his relation to the thought of his time, 
critical opinions of the work in question chosen from 
the great body of English criticism, and, where pos- 
sible, a portrait of the author, are given. Ample 
explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call 
for special attention are supplied, but irrelevant 
annotation and explanations of the obvious are rigidly , 
excluded. j 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. - 



Copyright, 1911 

MY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



©ci.a:^o;3o80 



' yur 



PREFACE 

The Sketch Book belongs to the group In the secondary school 
English list set for reading rather than for minute study. In 
preparing the notes for this edition, therefore, the aim has been 
to provide such supplementary matter as will help the reader 
to a better appreciation of the book, instead of a passing know- 
ledge of minute details that are not essential to the theme in hand. 
With this end in view, several passages from other volumes 
of Irving's works have been reprinted and numerous refer- 
ences to his other works cited, on the principle that the 
author is frequently at least his own best interpreter. A few 
suggestions for supplementary reading have been incorporated 
in the notes also, which it is hoped teachers may find it worth 
while to follow up and even extend. 

C. A. D. 

Syracuse, New York, August i, 191 1. 



p 



CONTENTS 



Introduction: 










The Life and Work of Washington Irving . 7 


The Study of The Sketch Book 


. 13 


Irving's Published Works . 






. 18 


Bibliography .... 






20 


The Sketch Book: 








Preface to the Revised Edition 






21 


The Author's Account of Himself 






. 31 


The Voyage .... 






. 35 


ROSCOE 








. 44 


The Wife .... 








. 54 


Rip Van Winkle 








. 65 


English Writers on America 








92 


Rural Life in England 








105 


The Broken Heart \- 




, 


. 


115 


The Art of Book-Making . 








. 123 


A Royal Poet 








. 133 


The Country Church 








. 153 


The Widow and Her Son . 








. 161 


A Sunday in London . 








. 172 


5 











CONTENTS 



The Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap 

The Mutability of Literature 

Rural Funerals . 

The Inn Kitchen v , 

The Spectre Bridegroom v. 

Westminster Abbey . V , 

Christmas .... 

The Stage Coach 

Christmas Eve . 

Christmas Day . 

The Christmas Dinner 

London Antiques 

Little Britain . 

Stratford-on-Avon 

Traits of Indian Character 

Philip of Pokanoket . 

John Bull .... 

The Pride of the Village 

The Angler 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 

L 'Envoy 

Appendix 

Notes 

Questions 



INTEODUCTION 

THE LIFE AND V/ORK OF WASHINGTON IRVING 

So completely are the writings and the life of Washington 
Irving identified that to appreciate the one without the other is 
impossible. No better impression of the spirit of his youth is 
to be had than that given as introductory to The Sketch Book in 
The Author's Account of Himself, and his essays and tales are 
constantly to be illustrated by reference to his letters and travels. 
In the boy who was to be pre-eminently the man of letters a pas- 
sion for reading developed early; at ten he was reading a trans- 
lation of Orlando Furioso and imitating fantastic adventures of 
chivalry in his father's back yard. These deeds of prowess 
were mingled with various hare-brained escapades along the roofs 
and gutters of the neighboring houses. A little later Robinson 
Crusoe and Sinhad the Sailor came to his hands, and the influence 
of these books in breeding a desire to travel was reenforced by a 
collection of voyages and travels under the title, The World 
Displayed. The sea began to exert upon the boy a lure such as 
it had held for his father before him. The father's sailor ex- 
perience was not to be repeated, but the lad's dreams of travel 
were to be realized in full measure. 

His first modest voyaging was occasioned by a convalescence 
from fever in 1798, when he first woke the echoes of Sleepy 
Hollow with his gun. Two years later he extended his travels 
by a trip up the Hudson, and his account of this journey shows 
that the beautiful river had already cast upon him the charm it 
held ever after. A second visit to the neighborhood of Albany, 
when he was falling into the ill health that brought about his 
first trip to Europe, followed in 1802, and the next year found 
him on an expedition with a party of friends to the site of 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION 

Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence and thence to Montreal and 
Quebec. At Montreal he first fell in with the fur traders of the^ 
Northwest, the romance of whose life he was afterwards to)' 
weave into his account of the settlement of Astoria on the Pa- 
cific Coast. The enthusiasm kindled in Irving by this early 
acquamtance with the lakes and forests and rivers of his own 
country he never lost. In 1824 he writes to his friend Brevoort 
from Pans: "The bay, the rivers and their wild and woody 
shores, the haunts of my boyhood, both on land and water 
absolutely have a witchery over my mind. I thank God for my 
havmg been born in so beautiful a place amoni? such beautiful 
scenery; I am convinced that I owe a vast deal of what is good 
and pleasant in my nature to the circumstance. " 

In the hope, shared by his brothers, that his health would be 
benefited by the voyage, he left New York in May, 1804, and 
landed m Bordeaux in June, just after Napoleon had been de- 
clared Emperor. Because of the state of war then existing, his 
trip through Southern France was hindered by police spies, who 
suspected him of being an Englishman. Later, on the voyage 
from Genoa to Sicily, an encounter with pirates served to en- 
hance the adventurous character of his journey and to furnish 
matenal for most interesting home letters. During the next 
two years he traveled through Italy, France, and Belgium, with 
a residence of some months in Paris and brief visits to London 
and Oxford. Besides the hoped-for betterment in health, the 
fruit of this journey was a closer and more appreciative acquain- 
tance with art and music, an enthusiasm for the opera, which 
was always afterward characteristic of him, and the beginning of 
that wide circle of acquaintance and friendship with notable peo- 
ple which formed so large a part of his life. In Rome he met the 
Amencan artist, Washington Allston, and between the two a 
warm friendship sprang up, so that Irving himself was on the 
point of trying painting as a life work. After his return to 
America in 1806 he enlarged the range of his travel and ac- 
quaintance by visits to Philadelphia and Washington and trips 
to Montreal. He was present in a semi-legal capacity at the 



LIFE AND WORK OF IRVING 9 

trial of Aaron Burr in Richmond. Virginia. This was wide trav- 
eling for that day and of no small advantage to the man who 
was to represent in England, for nearly twenty years, the best of 
America. 

The year 1809 brought to Irving the great sorrow of his life 
and his first notable literary success. In the spring of this year 
occurred the death of Matilda Hoffman, the daughter of Irving's 
friend, Judge Hoffman, in whose office he had studied law. To 
this loss probably is traceable much of a certain melancholy ten- 
derness that runs through his work. It was characteristic of the 
man, however, that during the following two months of retire- 
ment at Kinderhook he should occupy himself with the final 
preparation of the History of New York for the press. This was 
his first book, his previous writing having been confined to a few 
papers contributed to The Morning Chronicle in the autumn of 
1802 under the pen name of Jonathan Oldstyle and parts of the 
humorous periodical. Salmagundi, written during 1807. To 
Mr. Brevoort, who had presented to him a copy of the History, 
Walter vScott in 1813 wrote enthusiastically of "the most excel- 
lently jocose history of New York," and expressed a desire to 
see the next of Mr. Irving's work. In the years that elapsed 
before the appearance of that "next" work the two became 
personal friends, and Scott's connection with The Sketch Book 
is told in Irving's Preface to the Revised Edition. 

During the five years following the publication of the History 
Irving's only important literary work was the editing of The 
Analectic Magazine, from which the papers " Philip of Pokanoket " 
and "Indian Traits" were afterward taken for The Sketch Book. 
Frequent missions to Washington for the firm of Irvings, in 
which he now had an interest, served to extend his acquaintance. 
In 18 14 his always ardent patriotism found vent in a transient 
attachment to the military staff of the Governor of New York, 
under which commission he made a hasty trip to vSacketts Har- 
bor on Lake Ontario to inspect the war preparations there. 

Looking forward again with pleasure to a period of leisurely 
travel in Europe, Irving embarked for Liverpool in May, 18 15, 



10 INTRODUCTION 

and arrived, as he wrote, "just as the coaches were coming in 
decked with laurel and dashing proudly through the streets 
with the tidings of the Battle of Waterloo. " But, like many 
others, during the following period of business depression, the 
firm of Irvings, of whose business Peter Irving was in charge in 
Liverpool, was in difficulties, and Washington devoted most of 
his time during the next three years to a vain attempt to ward 
off the failure which came in 1818. Finally, in August of this 
year, with some material which he had gathered during occa- 
sional holidays snatched for visits to London, Stratford, Ab- 
botsford, and other places of interest, he went to London to try 
the literary career he had hitherto shunned. He decHned 
several government appointments, and on March 3, 1819, 
sent to his brother Ebenezer in New York the first part of The 
Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 

It was not without a good deal of hesitation that Irving 
launched himself on this new venture, but the work was a success 
from the first, and the author was assured of a place among the 
first writers, not only of his own day but of all English Hterature. 
Bracehridge Hall and Tales of a Traveller, both modeled somewhat 
upon the form of The Sketch Book, followed after a period of 
residence on the Continent. He now began to look for wider 
fields of work. A suggestion that he should translate a new 
Spanish work on Columbus prompted the visit to Spain which 
extended itself to a three years' residence and proved so rich a 
source of material. During this period he wrote his Life of 
Columbus and Conquest of Granada and gathered material for 
his other Spanish papers. After two years as Secretary of Lega- 
tion at London, Irving returned to America in 1832, having 
received as crowning honors the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford 
University and one of the medals conferred by the Royal Soci- 
ety of Literature in 1830, the other medal having been given to 
the historian Hallam. 

At the request of John Jacob Astor he now undertook the writ- 
ing of the account of Astoria, a work which was received in 
England with the greatest enthusiasm. But this, as well as 



LIFE AND WORK OF IRVING ii 

several other American subjects which were the fruit of his 
travel in the South and West, he looked upon as subordinate 
to the great work he had long had in mind, a Life of Washington. 
This had been suggested to him as early as 1825, and now that 
he seemed settled in America and had surrendered the subject 
of the Conquest of Mexico to Prescott, the time seemed ripe 
for the task; but many demands of the public upon his time and 
the necessity for other literary work interfered with the plan. 
He hoped for leisure in Spain after accepting the post of Minister 
to that country in 1842, but in this hope too he was disappointed, 
and it was not until 1859, within a year of his death, that the 
last volume of this, his longest and final work was published. 

Meanwhile, his "cottage," Wolfert's Roost, or Sunnyside 
as it was later styled, near the Sleepy Hollow that he had made 
famous, had become a place of pilgrimage as the residence of 
this most friendly and lovable man of letters. To a generously 
warm family sympathy there was added in him, in a notable 
degree, the capacity for friendship with people of all ranks. 
His books and his own personal charm gained for him an acquain- 
tance probably as wide as that of any man of his day. In 
1853 he wrote to his niece, Mrs. Storrow, at Paris: "Louis 
Napoleon and Eugenie Monti jo, Emperor and Empress of France! 
— one of whom I had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson; 
the other, whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Gra- 
nada!" An Enghsh lady who enjoyed an intimate acquaintance 
with Irving during his residence at Dresden in 1822-23 wrote of 
him in i860: "He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely 
externally in manners and look but to the innermost fibres and 
core of his heart. Sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, 
and gifted with the warmest affections, the most delightful and 
invariably interesting companion, gay and full of humor, even in 
spite of occasional fits of melancholy, which he was however 
seldom subject to when with those he liked — a gift of conversa- 
tion that flowed like a full river in sunshine, bright, easy, and 
abundant. " 

The following letter from Dickens, written in May, 1841, just 



12 INTRODUCTION 

before his first visit to America in answer to one from Irving 
telling of his enjoyment of the story of Little Nell, is interesting 
here. 

"My dear Sir: 

"There is no man in the world who could have given me the 
heartfelt pleasure you have, by your kind note of the 13th of last 
month. There is no living writer, and there are very few among 
the dead, whose approbation I should feel so proud to earn. 
And with everything you have written upon my shelves, and in 
my thoughts, and in my heart of hearts, I may honestly and 
truly say so. . . . I wish I could find in your welcome letter 
some hint of an intention to visit England. ... I should love 
to go with you — as I have gone, God knows how often — into 
Little Britain, and Eastcheap, and Green Arbor Court, and 
Westminster Abbey. I should like to travel with you, outside 
the last of the coaches, down to Bracebridge Hall ... to com- 
pare notes . . . about Robert Preston, and the tallow chand- 
ler's window, whose sitting-room is second nature to me; and 
about all those delightful places and people that I used to walk 
about and dream of in the day-time, when a very small and not 
over-particularly-well-taken-care-of boy. . . . Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should 
showyouhismutilatedcarcass with a joy past all expression. . . . 

"Always your faithful friend, 

"Charles Dickens." 

Irving was not a man with a great message for the world, 
and yet he had always a serious purpose in his humor. He was a 
man who simply recast the world he saw and made a part of in 
the forms of his own beautiful, generous, good nature. He was 
an ardent patriot, and both as private citizen and official did, 
in an unassuming way, good service for his country at a time 
when an American gentleman abroad had it in his power to do 
quite otherwise. He was born in New York April 3, 1783, and 
his life had spanned the long period of the beginnings of American 
literature when he died, full of years and honors, November 28, 



THE STUDY OF THE SKETCH BOOK 13 

1859, and was buried by the side of his mother in the Sleepy- 
Hollow cemetery. 

THE STUDY OF THE SKETCH BOOK 

Since Irving himself uses the comparison and we know that at 
the time of writing The Sketch Book his most intimate friends 
were the artists, Allston, Leslie, and Newton, we shall not go far 
wrong if in reading the book we view its contents much as one 
would the small sketches of a great artist. Such sketches are 
always interesting, not only in themselves but also for their sug- 
gestion of the artist's larger canvases and for the light they shed 
upon his methods of work. In the first place, while reading The 
Sketch Book the student must be careful to get with some cer- 
tainty the various viewpoints of the author. Failing this, he 
loses best half of the affair ; he will fail to catch the suggestion 
of a larger canvas, which each sketch carries in itself; he will fail 
to appreciate the varied phases of life which the book presents ; 
and he will miss also the common quality that marks all the 
sketches — the intimate, personal, sympathetic humor which is 
precisely the peculiar mark of the man, Washington Irving. 

In point of subject-matter and purpose — for Irving's work 
was never purposeless — the sketches fall into several classes, or 
rather may be grouped in several different ways. For most of 
them some such classification is indicated in the Notes. In 
general, when making up the "parts" for publication in America, 
Irving seems to have had in mind three groups: the humorous, 
such as "Rip Van Winkle"; the pathetic, like "The Wife," or 
"The Broken Heart"; and the curious or antique, of which the 
Christmas papers may serve as examples. But clearly this must 
leave quite out of view such literary pilgrimages as "Stratford- 
on-Avon," or "A Royal Poet," although in both, as well as in 
"Westminster Abbey," which stands quite alone, the antiquary 
is visible. Others, like "Rural Life, " are simply reflections upon 
the features of English life that interested the author. 

Such a paper as "Roscoe" is to be read in the light of the 



14 INTRODUCTION 

writer's Interest in the work of a public-spirited citizen, such 
work as might be done in his own home city. "English Writers 
on America, " again, is written in the conciliatory spirit of a man 
who, with wide acquaintance in both countries, well knew the 
ease with which friction and misunderstanding were engendered 
between England and America, and who knew also a way to avoid 
the difficulty. In "The Mutability of Literature" and "The 
Art of Book-making" he takes two very old them.es of satire and 
cynical reflection and treats them in a humorous and gently 
satirical vein that is quite past classifying. "Little Britain" 
and "John Bull " are specimens of caricature at its best, a quality 
which "The Country Church" shares with them in some degree. 
They should be read with the pending social and political changes 
in the England of that day clearly in mind. 

Irving did larger pieces of work in his lives of Washington and 
Columbus and the shorter Life of Goldsmith. But he always 
continued to make sketches, and The Sketch Book remains, taken 
altogether, a characteristic piece of work, suggesting widely 
varied sources of material and possibilities of larger work. This 
suggestiveness of other work, of more sketches, of wide fields of 
reading and observation, is for the student one of the most 
valuable qualities of The Sketch Book. Few volumes are richer 
in such hints. The reader may follow the author to the wide 
range of his literary sources, and he may go into the later books in 
which the plots that Irving merely outlines are more fully devel- 
oped, where in the pictures of life that he merely sketched the 
colors have been laid on. Besides, a twofold value is to be found 
in acquaintance with the author's method of work. First the 
student comes to know the personal quality and habits of the 
man who is so skilful a guide in the borderland between romance 
and fact; and in the second place he may form by imitation of 
the master such habits of open-mindedness and prompt readiness 
to take suggestions from many sources as will insure him ample 
material for his own composition. 

Information as to sources and occasions of the various papers 
will be found in the Notes. In general Irving's method was tq 



THE STUDY OF THE SKETCH BOOK 15 

gather his material from conversations, from his own observations 
of life, or from odd corners of libraries, and then to allow his 
fancy to play over it for a while at will. Out of this sort of pre- 
paration came most of his sketches.. Sometimes a chance remark 
or passing scene would set his pen going, and when in the mood 
he wrote rapidly, with an enjoyment of his work like that which 
characterized Dickens. More frequently he wrote slowly, giv- 
ing much time to correction, and rejecting much. Thomas 
Moore, the poet, after hearing Irving read from the manuscript 
of the Tales of a Traveller "A Literary Dinner," wrote: "He has 
given the description of the booksellers' dinner so exactly like 
what I told him of one of the Longmans (the carving partner, 
the partner to laugh at the popular author's jokes, the twelve- 
edition writers treated with claret, etc.), that I very much fear 
my friends in Paternoster Row will know themselves in the 
picture." 

His friend Leslie gives an interesting account of the writing 
of "The Stout Gentleman," accounted the best sketch in Brace- 
bridge Hall. The two had spent a rainy Sunday in the inn at 
Oxford. "That next morning, as we mounted the coach, I said 
something about a stout gentleman who had come from London 
with us the day before, and Irving remarked that 'The Stout 
Gentleman' would not be a bad title for a tale; as soon as the 
coach stopped, he began writing with his pencil, and went on at 
every like opportunity. We visited Stratford-on-Avon, strolled 
about Charlecot Park and other places in the neighborhood, and 
while I was sketching, Irving, mounted on a stile or seated on a 
stone, was busily engaged with 'The Stout Gentleman.' He 
wrote with the greatest rapidity, often laughing to himself, and 
from time to time reading the manuscript to me. " 

Irving himself was pretty clear as to the precise and peculiar 
character of his work. He was frequently urged to write a 
novel, but he chose deliberately to hold to the sort of work he had 
already done well. "For my part," he wrote to a friend in 
1824, " I consider a story merely as a frame upon which to stretch 
my materials. It is the play of thought and sentiment and Ian- 



i6 INTRODUCTION 

guage; the weaving in of characters lightly yet expressively 
delineated; the familiar and faithful exhibition of scenes in com- 
mon life ; and the half-concealed vein of humor that is often play- 
ing through the whole — these are among what I aim at. . . . 
I have preferred adopting the mode of sketches and short tales 
rather than long works, because I choose to take a line of writing 
peculiar to myself, rather than fall into the manner or school of 
any other writer." Thomas Moore, writing in March, 182 1, 
says: "Irving . . . has followed up an idea which I suggested, 
and taken the characters in his 'Christmas Essay,' Master Simon, 
etc., etc., for the purpose of making a slight thread of a story on 
which to string his remarks and sketches of human manners and 
feelings." 

These comments are really the key to the structure of Irving's 
sketches. They explain also why he never developed the short 
story with its compactness and climax. He simply was not 
interested in it. The papers of The Sketch Book, then, vary in 
technical form between the narrative essay and the romantic 
tale, the distinction between the two lying in the greater prom- 
inence of reflection in the former and of narrative interest in 
the latter. Of the narrative essay "Westminster Abbey" may 
be taken as representative; of the romantic tale "The Spectre 
Bridegroom" with its loose story structure is typical. The 
narrative essay, in which the writer uses a thread of narrative 
to carry his reflections, had been skilfully developed by Addison, 
Steele, and Goldsmith, who had served Irving as models of style; 
the tale, of course, is as old as "once upon a time." Irving's 
sympathetic humor enabled him to throw into most of his sketches 
the qualities of both these forms. 

The next problem therefore, for the student, that of observing 
the literary form of the sketches, is simple. Allowing for the 
inimitable element of Irving's genius, the problem is to discover 
the method of unifying an essay by means of a consistent setting 
of narrative or description. 

This direction leads naturally to some study of Irving's diction, 
which for aptness, grace, and appropriateness has yet to be 



THE STUDY OF THE SKETCH BOOK 17 

surpassed. In this matter, the teacher needs often to guard 
against laying too much emphasis upon the unusual word. 
Irving uses some antique forms of word and phrase with a 
definite purpose, as he uses also some provincial and colloquial 
turns of expression; but these are the exception. His habitual, 
ordinary diction is the important thing. The best method for 
this study is that based upon oral reading. As Irving's descrip- 
tions are drawn with the eye of an artist, so his sentences and 
words are chosen and tested by the ear of a lover of music. 
None of the books usually read in high school English classes 
is better adapted than The Sketch Book for oral reading to de- 
velop an appreciation of English vowels and consonants and 
that skill in forming them which is often so sadly wanting in our 
speech. 



IRVING'S PUBLISHED WORKS 

Jonathan Oldstyle Papers, contributed to The Morning Chronicle, 
1802. Republished without authority, 1823, in New York. 

Salmagundi (name meaning a dish of spiced, chopped meat, 
etc.; hence a Miscellany). A series of papers modeled somewhat 
after the Spectator papers of Addison. Twenty numbers pub- 
lished during 1807-08. Washington Irving, his brother William 
Irving, and James K. Paulding worked together on this, writing 
under the pen names of Lancelot Langstaff, Anthony Evergreen, 
William Wizard, Pindar Cockloft (poet), and Mustapha Rub-a- 
dub Keli Khan, the aliases being used now by one, now by another 
of the three writers. 

Contributions to The Analectic Magazine, 1813-1814. "Philip 
of Pokanoket" and "Indian Traits" were written for this 
review. 

History of New York, 1809, published as "A Posthumous work 
of Diedrich Knickerbocker. " 

The Sketch Book, published in seven parts in America. 
Part I. May, 1819: 

Author's Account of Himself. 

The Voyage. 

Roscoe. 

The Wife. 

Rip Van Winkle. 
Part 2. July, 18 19: 

English Writers on America. 

Rural Life in England. 

The Broken Heart. 

The Art of Book-making. 
Part 3. September, 18 19: 

A Royal Poet. 

18 



IRVING' S PUBLISHED WORKS 19 

The Country Church. 
The Widow and Her Son. 
The Boar's Head. 
Part 4. November, 18 19: 

The Mutability of Literature. 
The Spectre Bridegroom. 
Rural Funerals. 
Part 5. December, 18 19: 

The Christmas Papers. 
Part 6. March, 1820: 

The Pride of the Village. 
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 
John Bull. 
Part 7. September, 1820: 
Westminster Abbey . 
Stratford. 
Little Britain. 
The Angler. 
Parts 1-4 were published In England as vol. i. in February, 
1820, parts 5-7, in July, 1820, with "Philip of Pokanoket" and 
"Indian Traits." 

Bracehridge Hall, 1822. 
Tales of a Traveller, 1824. 

The Life and Voyages of Columbus, 1828. Abridged in America, 
1829, in England, 1830. 
A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, 1829. 
The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus, 1830-31. 
The Alhambra, in England and America, and in France in 
translation in two volumes, 1832. 
The Crayon Miscellany, 1835. 

Part I. A Tour on the Prairies. 
Part 2. Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. 
Part 3. Legends of the Conquest of Spain. 
Astoria, 1836. 

Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 1837. 
Sketch of the Life of Goldsmith, in Harper's Family Library, 1839. 



20 INTRODUCTION 

Contributions to The Knickerbocker Magazine, 1839-1840, re- 
published as Wolferfs Roost, 1855. 
Revision of Works, 1848-9. 

Life of Goldsmith, rewritten and published separately, 1849. 
Mahomet and His Successors, 1849-50. 
Wolfert's Roost, 1855. 
Life of Washington, 1855-59. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following list is not intended to be exhaustive, but simply 
to give the books and articles that would be available for most 
schools, in libraries of moderate size. 

Life and Letters of Washington Irving, by Pierre M. Irving, 
3 volumes, 1869. The standard, complete authority. 

Washington Irving, Charles Dudley Warner, in American Men 
of Letters Series. This contains good chapters on his works, 
with summaries. 

A Literary History of America, book iv., chapter iii., by Barrett 
Wendell. An excellent chapter of discriminating criticism. 

American Short Stories, by C. S. Baldwin. The introduction 
discusses Irving's relation to the development of the short story. 

"Nil Nisi Bonum," in Roundabout Papers, Thackeray, contains 
a very interesting estimate of the man. 

The Work of Washington Irving, a short essay, by C D. Warner, 

1893. 

Irving, in Leading American Essayists, by W. M. Payne, 
19 10. An excellent brief account of his life and place in American 
literature. 

The Critic for March 31, 1883, The Irving Centenary Edition, 
contained many useful articles on Irving, with a rather full 
bibHography. 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 

The following papers, with two exceptions, were 
written in England, and formed but part of an in- 
tended series, for which I had made notes and memo- 
randums. Before I could mature a plan, however, 
circumstances compelled me to send them piecemeal 
to the United States, where they were published 
from time to time in portions or numbers. It was not 
my intention to publish them in England, being con- 
scious that much of their contents would be interesting 
only to American readers, and, in truth, being deterred 
by the severity with which American productions 
had been treated by the British press. 

By the time the contents of the first volume had ap- 
peared in this occasional manner, they began to find 
their way across the Atlantic, and to be inserted, with 
many kind encomiums, in the London Literary Gazette. 
It was said, also, that a London bookseller intended to 
publish them in a collective form. I determined, 
therefore, to bring them forward myself, that they 
might at least have the benefit of my superintendence 
and revision. I accordingly took the printed numbers, 
which I had received from the United States, to Mr. 
John Murray, the eminent publisher, from whom I 
had already received friendly attentions, and left 
them with him for examination, informing him that 

21 



22 THE SKETCH BOOK 

should he be incHned to bring them before the public, 
I had materials enough on hand for a second volume. 
Several days having elapsed without any communica- 
tion from Mr. Murray, I addressed a note to him, 
in which I construed his silence into a tacit rejection 
of my work, and begged that the numbers I had left 
with him might be returned to me. The following 
was his reply : 

My dear Sir, — 

I entreat you to believe that I feel truly obliged by your kind 
intentions towards me, and that I entertain the most unfeigned 
respect for your most tasteful talents. My house is completely 
filled with work-people at this time, and I have only an office to 
transact business in; and yesterday I was wholly occupied, or I 
should have done myself the pleasure of seeing you. 

If it would not suit me to engage in the publication of your 
present work, it is only because I do not see that scope in the 
nature of it which would enable me to make those satisfactory 
accounts between us, without which I really feel no satisfaction in 
engaging — but I will do all I can to promote their circulation, 
and shall be most ready to attend to any future plan of yours. 
With much regard, I remain, dear sir, 

Your faithful servant, 

John Murray. 

This was disheartening, and might have deterred 
me from any further prosecution of the matter, had 
the question of republication in Great Britain rested 
entirely with me; but I apprehended the appearance 
of a spurious edition. I now thought of Mr. Archi- 
bald Constable as publisher, having been treated by 
him with much hospitaHty during a visit to Edin- 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 23 

burgh ; but first I determined to submit my work to 
Sir Walter (then Mv.) Scott, being encouraged to do so 
by the cordial reception I had experienced from him 
at Abbot sford a few years previously, and by the 
favorable opinion he had expressed to others of my 
earlier writings. I accordingly sent him the printed 
numbers of the Sketch Book in a parcel by coach, and 
at the same time wrote to him, hinting that since I 
had had the pleasure of partaking of his hospitaHty, 
a reverse had taken place in my affairs which made 
the successful exercise of my pen all-important to 
me; I begged him, therefore, to look over the literary 
articles I had forwarded to him, and, if he thought 
they would bear European republication, to ascertain 
whether Mr. Constable would be inclined to be the 
publisher. 

The parcel containing my work went by coach to 
Scott's address in Edinburgh; the letter went by mail 
to his residence in the country. By the very first post 
I received a reply, before he had seen my work. 

"I was down at Kelso," said he, "when your letter 
reached Abbotsford. I am now on my way to town, 
and will converse with Constable, and do all in my 
power to forward your views — I assure you nothing 
will give me more pleasure." 

The hint, however, about a reverse of fortune had 
struck the quick apprehension of Scott, and, with that 
practical and efficient good will which belonged to 
his nature, he had already devised a way of aiding me. 

A weekly periodical, he went on to inform me, was 



24 THE SKETCH BOOK 

about to be set up in Edinburgh, supported by the 
most respectable talents, and amply furnished with 
all the necessary information. The appointment of 
the editor, for which ample funds were provided, 
would be five hundred pounds sterhng a year, with the 
reasonable prospect of further advantages. This 
situation, being apparently at his disposal, he frankly 
offered to me. The work, however, he intimated, 
was to have somewhat of a political bearing, and 
he expressed an apprehension that the tone it was 
desired to adopt might not suit me. "Yet I risk the 
question," added he, "because I know no man so 
well qualified for this important task, and perhaps 
because it will necessarily bring you to Edinburgh. 
If my proposal does not suit, you need only keep the 
matter secret, and there is no harm done. 'And for 
my love I pray you wrong me not. ' If, on the con- 
trary, you think it could be made to suit you, let me 
know as soon as possible, addressing Castle-street, 
Edinburgh." 

In a postscript, written from Edinburgh, he adds, 
"I am just come here, and have glanced over the 
Sketch Book. It is positively beautiful, and increases 
my desire to crimp you, if it be possible. Some 
difficulties there always are in managing such a mat- 
ter, especially at the outset ; but we will obviate them 
as much as we possibly can. " 

The following is from an imperfect draught of my 
reply, which underwent some modifications in the 
copy sent; 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 25 

"I cannot express how much I am gratified by your 
letter. I had begun to feel as if I had taken an unwar- 
rantable liberty; but, somehow or other, there is a 
genial sunshine about you that warms every creeping 
thing into heart and confidence. Your literary pro- 
posal both surprises and flatters me, as it evinces a 
much higher opinion of my talents than I have 
myself." 

I then went on to explain that I found myself pecu- 
liarly unfitted for the situation offered to me, not 
merely by my political opinions, but by the very 
constitution and habits of my mind. "My whole 
course of life," I observed, "has been desultory, and 
I am unfitted for any periodically recurring task, or 
any stipulated labor of body or mind. I have no 
command of my talents, such as they are, and have 
to watch the varyings of my mind as I would those of 
a weather-cock. Practice and training may bring 
me more into rule ; but at present I am as useless for 
regular service as one of my own country Indians 
or a Don Cossack. 

"I must, therefore, keep on pretty much as I have 
begun; writing when I can, not when I would. I shall 
occasionally shift my residence and write whatever is 
suggested by objects before me, or whatever rises in 
my imagination; and hope to write better and more 
copiously by and by. 

"I am playing the egotist, but I know no better 
way of answering your proposal than by showing 
what a very good-for-nothing kind of being I am, 



26 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Should Mr. Constable feel inclined to make a bargain 
for the wares I have on hand, he will encourage me 
to further enterprise; and it will be something like 
trading with a gipsy for the fruits of his prowlings, 
who may at one time have nothing but a wooden 
bowl to offer, and at another time a silver tankard." 
In reply, Scott expressed regret, but not surprise, at 
my declining what might have proved a troublesome 
duty. He then recurred to the original subject of 
our correspondence ; entered into a detail of the various 
terms upon which arrangements were made between 
authors and booksellers, that I might take my choice; 
expressing the most encouraging confidence of the 
success of my work, and of previous works which I 
had produced in America. "I did no more," added 
he, "than open the trenches with Constable; but I am 
sure if you will take the trouble to write to him, you 
will find him disposed to treat your overtures with 
every degree of attention. Or, if you think it of 
consequence in the first place to see me, I shall be in 
London in the course of a month, and whatever my 
experience can command is most heartily at your 
command. But I can add little to what I have said 
above, except my earnest recommendation to Con- 
stable to enter into the negotiation. "*_ 

* I cannot avoid subjoining in a note a succeeding paragraph 
of Scott's letter, which, though it does not relate to the main 
subject of our correspondence, was too characteristic to be omit- 
ted. Some time previously I had sent Miss Sophia Scott small 
duodecimo American editions of her father's poems published in 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 27 

Before the receipt of this most obliging letter, how- 
ever, I had determined to look to no leading bookseller 
for a launch, but to throw my work before the public 
at my own risk, and let it sink or swim according to 
its merits. I wrote to that effect to Scott, and soon 
received a reply : 

"I observe with pleasure that you are going to 
come forth in Britain. It is certainly not the very 
best way to publish on one's own account ; for the book- 
sellers set their face against the circulation of such 
works as do not pay an amazing toll to themselves. 
But they have lost the art of altogether damming up 
the road in such cases between the author and the 
public, which they were once able to do as effectually 
as Diabolus in John Bunyan's Holy War closed up 
the windows of my Lord Understanding's mansion. 
I am sure of one thing, that you have only to be known 
to the British public to be admired by them, and I 
would not say so unless I really was of that opinion. 

Edinburgh in quarto volumes; showing the "nigromancy" of 
the American press, by which a quart of wine is conjured into a 
pint bottle. Scott observes: "In my hurry, I have not thanked 
you in Sophia's name for the kind attention which furnished her 
with the American volumes. I am not quite sure I can add my 
own, since you have made her acquainted with much more of 
papa's folly than she would ever otherwise have learned; for I 
had taken special care they should never see any of those things 
during their eariier years. I think I told you that Walter is 
sweeping the firmament with a feather like a maypole, and 
indenting the pavement with a sword like a scythe — in other 
words, he has become a whiskered hussar in the i8th dragoons. " 



28 THE SKETCH BOOK 

" If you ever see a witty but rather local publication 
called Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, you will find 
some notice of your works in the last number: the 
author is a friend of mine, to whom I have introduced 
you in your literary capacity. His name is Lockhart, 
a young man of very considerable talent, and who will 
soon be intimately connected with my family. My 
faithful friend Knickerbocker is to be next examined 
and illustrated. Constable was extremely willing to 
enter into consideration of a treaty for your works, 
but I foresee will be still more so when 



Your name is up, and may go 
From Toledo to Madrid. 



-And that will soon be the case. I trust to be 



in London about the middle of the month, and prom- 
ise myself great pleasure in once again shaking you 
by the hand." 

The first volume of the Sketch Book was put to 
pres^ in London as I had resolved, at my own risk, 
by a bookseller unknown to fame, and without any of 
the usual arts by which a work is trumpeted into 
notice. Still some attention had been called to it by 
the extracts which had previously appeared in the 
Literary Gazette, and by the kind word spoken by 
the editor of that periodical, and it was getting into 
fair circulation, when my worthy bookseller failed 
before the first month was over, and the sale was 
interrupted. 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION 29 

At this juncture Scott arrived in London. I called 
to him for help, as I was sticking in the mire, and, 
more propitious than Hercules, he put his own shoul- 
der to the wheel. Through his favorable representa- 
tions, Murray was quickly induced to undertake the 
future publication of the work which he had previously 
declined. A further edition of the first volume was 
struck off and the second volume was put to press, 
and from that time Murray became my publisher, 
conducting himself in all his dealings with that fair, 
open, and liberal spirit which had obtained for him 
the well-merited appellation of the Prince of Book- 
sellers. 

Thus, under the kind and cordial auspices of Sir 
Walter Scott, I began my literary career in Europe; 
and I feel that I am but discharging, in a trifling de- 
gree, my debt of gratitude to the memory of that 
golden-hearted man in acknowledging my obliga- 
tions to him. — But who of his literary contempora- 
ries ever applied to him for aid or counsel that did 
not experience the most prompt, generous, *^nd 
effectual assistance ! 

W. I. 



THE SKETCH BOOK 
THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF 

I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snaile that crept 
out of her shel was turned eftsoons into a toad, and thereby was 
forced to make a stoole to sit on; so the traveller that stragleth 
from his owne country is in a short time transformed into so mon- 
strous a shape, that he is faine to alter his mansion with his 
manners, and to live where he can, not where he would. 

Lyly's Euphues.* 

I WAS always fond of visiting new scenes, and 
observing strange characters and manners. Even 
when a mere child I began my travels, and made many 
tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown 
regions of my native city,^ to the frequent alarm of 
my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier. 
As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my 
observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in 
rambles about the surrounding country. I made 
myself familiar with all its places famous in history 
or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or rob- 
bery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I visited 
the neighboring villages, and added greatly to my 
stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, 
and conversing with their sages and great men. I 
even journeyed one long summer's day to the summit 

31 



32 THE SKETCH BOOK 

of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my eye 
over many a mile of terra incognita, and was aston- 
ished to find how vast a globe I inhabited. 

This rambling propensity strengthened with my 
years. Books of voyages^ and travels became my 
passion, and in devouring their contents, I neglected 
the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully 
would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, 
and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes — • 
with what longing eyes would I gaze after their les- 
sening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the 
ends of the earth! 

Further reading and thinking, though they brought 
this vague inclination into more reasonable bounds, 
only served to make it more decided. I visited 
various parts of my own country;^ and had I been 
merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little 
desire to seek elsewhere its gratification, for on no 
country have the charms of nature been more prodi- 
gally lavished. Her mighty lakes, ^ like oceans of liquid 
silver; her mountains, with their bright aerial tints; 
her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tre- 
mendous cataracts, thundering in their soHtudes ; her 
boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; 
her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the 
ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts 
forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindHng with the 
magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine; — no, 
never need an American look beyond his own country 
for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. 



THE AUTHORS ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF 33 

But Europe held forth the charms of storied and 
poetical association. There were to be seen the master- 
pieces of art/ the refinements of highly-cultivated 
society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local 
custom. My native country was full of youthful 
promise : Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures 
of age. Her very ruins told the history of times 
gone by, and every mouldering stone was a chronicle. 
I longed to wander over the scenes of renowned 
achievement — to tread, as it were, in the footsteps 
of antiquity — to loiter about the ruined castle — to 
meditate on the falling tower — to escape, in short, 
from the commonplace realities of the present, and 
lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past. 

I had, beside all this, an earnest desire to see the 
great men of the earth. We have, it is true, our great 
men in America : ^ not a city but has an ample share of 
them. I have mingled among them in my time, and 
been almost withered by the shade into which they 
cast me ; for there is nothing so baleful to a small man 
as the shade of a great one, particularly the great man 
of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of 
Europe ; for I had read in the works of various philos- 
ophers that all animals degenerated in America, 
and man among the number. A great man of Europe, 
thought I, must therefore be as superior to a great 
man of America, as a peak of the Alps to a highland 
of the Hudson; and in this idea I was confirmed by 
observing the comparative importance and swelling- 
magnitude of many English travellers among us, who, 



34 THE SKETCH BOOK 

I was assured, were very little people in their own 
country. I will visit this land of wonders, thought I, 
and see the gigantic race from which I am degenerated. 
It has been either my good or evil lot to have my 
roving passion gratified. I have wandered through 
different countries, and witnessed many of the shift- 
ing scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied 
them with the eye of a philosopher; but rather with 
the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the 
picturesque stroll from the window of one print-shop 
to another; caught sometimes by the delineations of 
beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, 
and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it 
is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in 
hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with 
sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the enter- 
tainment of my friends. When, however, I look over 
the hints and memorandums I have taken down for 
the purpose, my heart almost fails me at finding how 
my idle humor has led me aside from the great objects 
studied by every regular traveller who would msflce a 
book. I fear I shall give equal disappointment with 
an unlucky landscape painter, who had travelled on 
the continent, but, following the bent of his vagrant 
inclination, had sketched in nooks, and corners, and 
by-places. His sketch-book was accordingly crowded 
with cottages, and landscapes, and obscure ruins; but 
he had neglected to paint St. Peter's,^ or the Coliseum; 
the cascade of Terni, or the Bay of Naples ; and had not 
a single glacier or volcano in his whole collection. 



THE VOYAGE 

Ships, ships, I will descrie you 

Amidst the main, 
I will come and try you, 

What you are protecting, 
And projecting, 
What's your end and aim. 
One goes abroad for merchandise and trading, 
Another stays to keep his country from invading, 
A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading. 
Halloo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go? 

Old Poem. 

To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage 
he has to make is an excellent preparative. The tem- 
porary absence of worldly scenes and employments 
produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive 
new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters 
that separates the hemispheres is like a blank page 
in existence. There is no gradual transition, by 
which, as in Europe, the features and population of 
one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of 
another. From the moment you lose sight of the land 
you have left all is vacancy until you step on the 
opposite shore, and are launched at once into the 
bustle and novelties of another world. 

In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene 
and a connected succession of persons and incidents, 

35 



36 THE SKETCH BOOK 

that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect 
of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a 
lengthening chain, " ^ at each remove of our pilgrimage ; 
but the chain is unbroken: we can trace it back link 
by link; and we feel that the last still grapples us to 
home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It 
makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure 
anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubt- 
ful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, 
but real, between us and our homes — a gulf subject 
to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, rendering dis- 
tance palpable, and return precarious. 

Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw 
the last blue line of my native land fade away like a 
cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one 
volume of the world and its concerns, and had time 
for meditation, before I opened another. That land, 
too, now vanishing from my view, which contained all 
most dear to me in life ; what vicissitudes might occur 
in it — what changes might take place in me, before 
I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets 
forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the 
uncertain currents of existence; or when he may re- 
turn; or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the 
scenes of his childhood? 

I said that at sea all is vacancy ; I should correct the 
expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond 
of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of 
subjects for meditation ; but then they are the wonders 
of the deep, and of the air, and rather tend to abstract 



THE VOYAGE 37 

the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll 
over the quarter-railing, or climb to the main-top, 
of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the 
tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the 
piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, 
fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a 
creation of my own ; — to watch the gentle undulating 
billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away 
on those happy shores. 

There was a delicious sensation of mingled security 
and awe with which I looked down from my giddy 
height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth 
gambols. Shoals of porpoises tumbling about the 
bow of the ship ; the grampus slowly heaving his huge 
form above the surface; or the ravenous shark, dart- 
ing, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My 
imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or 
read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny 
herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shape- 
less monsters that lurk among the very foundations 
of the earth; and of those wild phantasms that swell 
the tales of fishermen and sailors. 

Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of 
the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. 
How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to 
rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glorious 
monument of human invention; which has in a man- 
ner triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the 
ends of the world into communion; has established 
an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile 



38 THE SKETCH BOOK 

regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has; 
diffused the light of knowledge and the charities of; 
cultivated life; and has thus bound together those'; 
scattered portions of the human race, between which i 
nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable 
barrier. 

We one day descried some shapeless object drifting 
at a distance. At sea, everything that breaks the 
monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts atten- 
tion. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must 
have been completely wrecked; for there were^he , 
remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew) 
had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their 
being washed off by the waves. There was no trace 
by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. 
The wreck had evidently drifted about for many J 
months; clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it,' 
and long seaweeds flaunted at its sides. But where, 
thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has long been 
over — they have gone down amidst the roar of the 
tempest — their bones lie whitening among the caverns 
of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have 
closed over them, and no one can tell the story of 
their end. What sighs have been wafted after that 
ship! what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside 
of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, the 
mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some 
casual intelligence of this rover of the deep ! How has 
expectation darkened into anxiety — anxiety into dread 
— and dread into despair! Alas! not one memento 



THE VOYAGE 39 

may ever return for love to cherish. All that may 
ever be known is that she sailed from her port, 
*'and was never heard of more!" 

The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many 
dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case 
in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto 
been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave 
indications of one of those sudden storms which will 
sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer 
voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp 
in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, 
every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I 
was particularly struck with a short one related by 
the captain. 

"As I was once sailing," said he, "in a fine stout 
ship across the banks of Newfoundland, ^ one of those 
heavy fogs which prevail in those parts rendered it 
impossible for us to see far ahead even in the daytime ; 
but at night the weather was so thick that we could 
not distinguish any object at twice the length of the 
ship. I kept lights at the masthead, and a constant 
watch forward to look out for fishing smacks, which 
are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The 
wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were 
going at a great rate through the water. Suddenly 
the watch gave the alarm of *a sail ahead!' — it was 
scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was 
a small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside 
towards us. The crew were all asleep, and had neg- 
lected to hoist a light. We struck her just amidships. 



40 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The force, the size, the weight of our vessel bore herr 
down below the waves; we passed over her and were^ 
hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was^ 
sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three- 
half-naked wretches rushing from her cabin; they just; 
started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by- 
the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with 
the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears swept 
us out of all further hearing. I shall never forget 
that cry! It was some time before we could put the 
ship about, she was under such headway. We re- 
turned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where 
the smack had anchored. We cruised about for several 
hours in the dense fog. We fired signal guns, and 
listened if we might hear the halloo of any survivors: 
but all was silent— we never saw or heard anything 
of them more." 

I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all 
my fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. 
The sea was lashed into tremendous confusion. There 
was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves, and 
broken surges. Deep called unto deep.^ At times 
the black column of clouds overhead seemed rent 
asunder by flashes of lightning which quivered along 
the foaming billows, and made the succeeding dark- 
ness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over 
the wild waste of waters, and were echoed and pro- 
longed by the mountain waves. As I saw the ship 
staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns 
it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, ' 



THE VOYAGE 41 

or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip 
into the water: her bow was almost buried beneath 
the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared 
ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous 
movement of the helm preserved her from the shock. 

When I retired to my cabin, the awful scene still 
followed me. The whistling of the wind through the 
rigging sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking 
of the masts, the straining and groaning of bulk- 
heads, as the ship labored in the weltering sea, were 
frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the 
sides of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed 
as if Death were raging round this floating prison, 
seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail, the 
yawning of a seam, might give him entrance. 

A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favor- 
ing breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to 
flight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening 
influence of fine weather and fair wind at sea. When 
the ship is decked out in all her canvas, every sail 
swelled, and careering gayly over the curling waves, 
how lofty, how gallant she appears — how she seems 
to lord it over the deep! 

I might fill a volume with the reveries of a sea voy- 
age, for with me it is almost a continual reverie — 
but it is time to get to shore. 

It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry 
of "land!" was given from the masthead. None 
but those who have experienced it can form an idea 
of the delicious throng of sensations which rush into 



42 THE SKETCH BOOK 

an American's bosom, when he first comes in sight of 
Europe. There is a volume of associations with the 
very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with, 
everything of which his childhood has heard, or on 
which his studious years have pondered. 

From that time until the moment of arrival, it 
was all feverish excitement. The ships of war, that 
prowled like guardian giants along the coast ; the head- 
lands of Ireland, stretching out into the channel; the 
Welsh mountains, towering into the clouds; all were 
objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the 
Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. 
My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with 
their trim shrubberies and green grass plots. I saw 
the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, 
and the taper spire of a village church rising from the 
brow of a neighboring hill — all were characteristic of 
England. 

The tide and wind were so favorahle that the ship 
was enabled to come at once to the pier. It was 
thronged with people; some, idle lookers-on, others, 
eager expectants of friends or relatives. I could 
distinguish the merchant to whom the ship was con- 
signed. I knew him by his calculating brow and 
restless air. His hands were thrust into his pockets; 
he was whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and 
fro, a small space having been accorded him by the 
crowd, in deference to his temporary importance. 
There were repeated cheerings and salutations inter- 
changed between the shore and the ship, as friends 



THE VOYAGE 43 

happened to recognize each other. I particularly 
noticed one young woman of humble dress, but 
interesting demeanor. She was leaning forward from 
among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it 
neared the shore, to catch some wished-for counte- 
nance. She seemed disappointed and agitated; when 
I heard a faint voice call her name. It was from a 
poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage, and had ex- 
cited the sympathy of every one on board. When the 
weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress 
for him on deck in the shade, but of late his illness 
had so increased, that he had taken to his hammock, 
and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife 
before he died. He had been helped on deck as we 
came up the river, and was now leaning against the 
shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, so pale, so 
ghastly, that it was no wonder even the eye of affection 
did not recognize him. But at the sound of his 
voice, her eye darted on his features; it read, at once, 
a whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, 
uttered a faint shriek, and stood wringing them in 
silent agony. 

All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of 
acquaintances — the greetings of friends — the consul- 
tations of men of business. I alone was solitary and 
idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive. 
I stepped upon the land of my forefathers — but felt 
that I was a stranger in the land. 



ROSCOE 

In the service of mankind to be 
A guardian god below; still to employ 
The mind's brave ardor in heroic aims, 
Such as may raise us o'er the grovelling herd, 
And make us shine forever — that is life. 

Thomson. 

One of the first places to which a stranger is taken 
in Liverpool is the Athenaeum. It is established on a 
liberal and judicious plan; it contains a good library, 
and spacious reading-room, and is the great literary 
resort of the place. Go there at what hour you may, 
you are sure to find it filled with grave-looking per- 
sonages, deeply absorbed in the study of newspapers. 

As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned, my 
attention was attracted to a person just entering the 
room. He was advanced in life, tall, and of a form 
that might once have been commanding, but it was a 
little bowed by time — perhaps by care. He had a 
noble Roman style of countenance; a head that would 
have pleased a painter; and though some slight fur- 
rows on his brow showed that wasting thought had 
been busy there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire 
of a poetic soul. There was something in his whole 
appearance that indicated a being of a different order 
from the bustHng race around him. 

44 



ROSCOE 45 

I inquired his name, and was informed that it was 
Roscoe. I drew back with an involuntary feeHng of 
veneration. This, then, was an author of celebrity; 
this was one of those men whose voices have gone forth 
to the ends of the earth; with whose minds I have 
communed even in the solitudes of America. Accus- 
tomed, as we are in our country, to know European 
writers only by their works, we cannot conceive of 
them, as of other men, engrossed by trivial or sordid 
pursuits, and jostling with the crowd of common 
minds in the dusty paths of life. They pass before our 
imaginations like superior beings, radiant with the 
emanations of their genius, and surrounded by a halo 
of literary glory. 

To find, therefore, the elegant historian of the 
Medici,^ mingling among the busy sons of traffic, at 
first shocked my poetical ideas ; but it is from the very 
circumstances and situation in which he has been 
placed that Mr. Roscoe derives his highest claims to 
admiration. It is interesting to notice how some 
minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up 
under every disadvantage, and working their solitary 
but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. 
Nature seems to delight in disappointing the as- 
siduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate 
dulness to maturity; and to glory in the vigor and 
luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters 
the seeds of genius to the winds, and though some may 
perish among the stony places of the world, ^ and some 
be choked by the thorns and brambles of early adver- 



46 THE SKETCH BOOK 

sity, yet others will now and then strike root even in 
the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, 
and spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties 
of vegetation. 

Such has been the case with Mr. Roscoe. Born in 
a place apparently ungenial to the growth of literary 
talent; in the very market-place of trade; without' 
fortune, family connections, or patronage; self- 
prompted, self-sustained, and almost self-taught, he 
has conquered every obstacle, achieved his way to 
eminence, and, having become one of the ornaments 
of the nation, has turned the whole force of his talents 
and influence to advance and embellish his native 
town. 

Indeed, it is this last trait in his character which has 
given him the greatest interest in my eyes, and in- 
duced me particularly to point him out to my country- 
men. Eminent as are his literary merits, he is but one 
among the many distinguished authors of this intel- 
lectual nation. They, however, in general, live but 
for their own fame, or their own pleasures. Their pri- 
vate history presents no lesson to the world, or perhaps 
a humiliating one of human frailty and inconsistency. 
At best, they are prone to steal away from the bustle 
and commonplace of busy existence; to indulge in 
the selfishness of lettered ease; and to revel in scenes of 
mental, but exclusive, enjoyment. 

Mr. Roscoe, on the contrary, has claimed none of 
the accorded privileges of talent. He has shut him- 
self up in no garden of thought, nor elysium of fancy; 



ROSCOE 47 

but has gone forth into the highways and thorough- 
fares of Hfe; he has planted bowers by the wayside, 
for the refreshment of the pilgrim and the sojourner, 
and has opened pure fountains, where the laboring 
man may turn aside from the dust and heat of the day, 
and drink of the living streams of knowledge. ^ There 
is a "daily beauty in his life, " ^ on which mankind may 
meditate and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and 
almost useless, because inimitable, example of excel- 
lence; but presents a picture of active, yet simple 
and imitable virtues, which are within every man's 
reach, but which, unfortunately, are not exercised by 
many, or this world would be a paradise. 

But his private life is peculiarly worthy the atten- 
tion of the citizens of our young and busy country, 
where literature and the elegant arts must grow up 
side by side with the coarser plants of daily necessity ; 
and must depend for their culture, not on the exclusive 
devotion of time and wealth, nor the quickening rays 
of titled patronage, but on hours and seasons snatched 
from the pursuit of worldly interests, by intelligent 
and public-spirited individuals. 

He has shown how much may be done for a place in 
hours of leisure by one master spirit, and how com- 
pletely it can give its own impress to surrounding 
objects. Like his own Lorenzo de' Medici, on whom 
he seems to have fixed his eye as on a pure model of 
antiquity, he has interwoven the history of his life 
with the history of his native town, and has made the 
foundations of its fame the monuments of his virtues. 



48 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Wherever you go in Liverpool, you perceive traces of 
his footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal. He 
found the tide of wealth flowing merely in the channels 
of traffic; he has diverted from it invigorating rills 
to refresh the garden of literature. By his own 
example and constant exertions he has effected that 
union of commerce and the intellectual pursuits, so 
eloquently recommended in one of his latest writings:* 
and has practically proved how beautifully they may 
be brought to harmonize, and to benefit each other. 
The noble institutions for literary and scientific pur- 
poses, which reflect such credit on Liverpool, and are 
giving such an impulse to the public mind, have mostly 
been originated, and have all been effectively pro- 
moted, by Mr. Roscoe; and when we consider the 
rapidly increasing opulence and magnitude of that 
town, which promises to vie in commercial import- 
ance with the metropolis, it will be perceived that 
in awakening an ambition of mental improvement 
among its inhabitants he has effected a great benefit 
to the cause of British literature. 

In America, we know Mr. Roscoe only as the 
author — in Liverpool he is spoken of as the banker; 
and I was told of his having been unfortunate in 
business. I could not pity him, as I heard some rich 
men do. I considered him far above the reach of 
pity. Those who live only for the world, and in the 
world, may be cast down by the frowns of adversity;^ 

* Address on the opening of the Liverpool Institution. 



ROSCOE 49 

but a man like Roscoe is not to be overcome by the 
reverses of fortune. They do but drive him in upon 
the resources of his own mind ; to the superior society 
of his own thoughts; which the best of men are apt 
sometimes to neglect, and to roam abroad in search 
of less worthy associates. He is independent of the 
world around him. He lives with antiquity and pos- 
terity; with antiquity, in the sweet communion of 
studious retirement; and with posterity, in the gener- 
ous aspirings after future renown. The soHtude of 
such a mind is its state of highest enjoyment. It is 
then visited by those elevated meditations which are 
the proper aliment of noble souls, and are, Hke manna, ^ 
sent from heaven, in the wilderness of this world. 

While my feelings were yet alive on the subject, it 
was my fortune to Hght on further traces of Mr. 
Roscoe. I was riding out with a gentleman, to view 
the environs of Liverpool, when he turned off, through 
a gate, into some ornamented grounds. After riding 
a short distance, we came to a spacious mansion of 
freestone, built in the Grecian style. It was not in 
the purest taste, yet it had an air of elegance, and the 
situation was delightful. A fine lawn sloped away 
from it, studded with clumps of trees, so disposed as 
to break a soft fertile country into a variety of land- 
scapes. The Mersey was seen winding a broad quiet 
sheet of water through an expanse of green meadow- 
land; while the Welsh mountains, blended with clouds, 
and melting into distance, bordered the horizon. 

This was Roscoe's favorite residence during the 



50 THE SKETCH BOOK 

days of his prosperity. It had been the seat of ele- 
gant hospitahty and literary retirement. The house 
was now silent and deserted. I saw the windows of 
the study, which looked out upon the soft scenery I 
have mentioned. The windows were closed — the 
library was gone. Two or three ill-favored beings 
were loitering about the place, whom my fancy pic- 
tured into retainers of the law. It was like visiting 
some classic fountain, that had once welled its pure 
waters in a sacred shade, but finding it dry and dusty, 
with the lizard and the toad brooding over the shat- 
tered marbles. 

I inquired after the fate of Mr. Roscoe's library, 
which had consisted of scarce and foreign books, from 
many of which he had drawn the materials for his 
Italian histories. It had passed under the hammer of 
the auctioneer, and was dispersed about the country. 
The good people of the vicinity thronged like wreckers 
to get some part of the noble vessel that had been 
driven on shore. Did such a scene admit of ludicrous 
associations, we might imagine something whimsical 
in this strange irruption in the regions of learning. 
Pigmies rummaging the armory of a giant, and con- 
tending for the possession of weapons which they could 
not wield. We might picture to ourselves some knot 
of speculators, debating with calculating brow over the 
quaint binding and illuminated margin of an obsolete 
author; of the air of intense but baffled sagacity, 
with which some successful purchaser attempted to 
dive into the black-letter bargain he had secured. 



• ROSCOE 51 

It is a beautiful incident in the story of Mr. Roscoe's 
misfortunes, and one which cannot fail to interest the 
studious mind, that the parting with his books seems 
to have touched upon his tenderest feelings, and to 
have been the only circumstance that could provoke 
the notice of his muse. The scholar only knows how 
dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure 
thoughts and innocent hours become in the seasons 
of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross 
around us, these only retain their steady value. 
When friends grow cold, and the converse of inti- 
mates languishes into vapid civility and common- 
place, these only continue the unaltered countenance 
of happier days, and cheer us with that true friend- 
ship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow. 

I do not wish to censure; but, surely, if the people 
of Liverpool had been properly sensible of what was 
due to Mr. Roscoe and themselves, his library would 
never have been sold. Good worldly reasons may, 
doubtless, be given for the circumstance, which it 
would be difficult to combat with others that might 
seem merely fanciful; but it certainly appears to me 
such an opportunity as seldom occurs, of cheering a 
noble mind struggling under misfortunes, by one of 
the most delicate, but most expressive tokens of public 
sympathy. It is difficult, however, to estimate a man 
of genius properly who is daily before* our eyes. He 
becomes mingled and confounded with other men. 
His great qualities lose their novelty, we become too 
familiar with the common materials which form the 



52 THE SKETCH BOOK 

basis even of the loftiest character. Some of Mr. 
Roscoe's townsmen may regard him merely as a man 
of business ; others as a politician ; all find him engaged 
like themselves in ordinary occupations, and sur- 
passed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of 
worldly wisdom. Even that amiable and unosten- 
tatious simplicity of character, which gives the name- 
less grace to real excellence, may cause him to be 
undervalued by some coarse minds, who do not know 
that true worth is always void of glare and pretension. 
But the man of letters who speaks of Liverpool, 
speaks of it as the residence of Roscoe. — The intelli- 
gent traveller who visits it inquires where Roscoe is 
to be seen. — He is the literary landmark of the place, 
indicating its existence to the distant scholar. — He is, 
like Pompey's column^ at Alexandria, towering alone 
in classic dignity. 

The following sonnet, addressed by Mr. Roscoe to 
his books on parting with them, is alluded to in the 
preceding article. If anything can add effect to the 
pure feeling and elevated thought here displayed, 
it is the conviction that the whole is no effusion of 
fancy, but a faithful transcript from the writer's 
heart. 

TO MY BOOKS 

As one who, destined from his friends to part 
Regrets his loss, but hopes again erewhile 
To share their converse and enjoy their smile, 

And tempers as he may affliction's dart ; 



ROSCOE 53 

Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art, 

Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile 
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, 

I now resign you ; nor with fainting heart ; 

For pass a few short years, or days, or hours, 

And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, 
And all your sacred fellowship restore : 
When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers, 

Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 
And kindred spirits meet to part no more. 



THE WIFE 

The treasures of the deep are not so precious 
As are the conceal'd comforts of a man 
Locked up in woman's love. I scent the air 
Of blessings, when I come but near the house. 
What a dehcious breath marriage sends forth . . . 
The violet bed 's not sweeter. 

MiDDLETON. 

I HAVE often had occasion to remark the fortitude 
with which women sustain the most overwhelming 
reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break 
down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the 
dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer 
sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their 
character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. 
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft 
and tender female, who had been all weakness and 
dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness, 
while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly 
rising in mental force to be the comforter and support 
of her husband under misfortune, and abiding, with 
unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blasts of adversity. 

As the vine, which has long twined its graceful 
foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into 
sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the 
thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, 

54 



THE WIFE 55 

and bind up its shattered boughs; so is it beautifully 
ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the mere 
dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, 
should be his stay and solace when smitten with sud- 
den calamity ; winding herself into the rugged recesses 
of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, 
and binding up the broken heart. 

I was once congratulating a friend, who had around 
him a blooming family, knit together in the strongest 
affection. "I can wish you no better lot," said he, 
with enthusiasm, "than to have a wife and children. 
If you are prosperous, there they are to share your 
prosperity; if otherwise, there they are to comfort 
you." And, indeed, I have observed that a married 
man falling into misfortune is more apt to retrieve his 
situation in the world than a single one ; partly because 
he is more stimulated to exertion by the necessities 
of the helpless and beloved beings who depend upon 
him for subsistence ; but chiefly because his spirits are 
soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and 
his self-respect kept alive by finding that though all 
abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still 
a little world of love at home, of which he is the mon- 
arch. Whereas a single man is apt to run to waste and 
self -neglect ; to fancy himself lonely and abandoned, 
and his heart to fall to ruin Hke some deserted mansion, 
for want of an inhabitant. 

These observations call to mind a little domestic 
story, of which I was once a witness. My intimate 
friend, Leslie, had married a beautiful and accom- 



56 THE SKETCH BOOK 

plished girl, who had been brought up in the midst of 
fashionable life. She had, it is true, no fortune, but 
that of my friend was ample ; and he delighted in the 
anticipation of indulging her in every elegant pursuit, 
and administering to those delicate tastes and fancies 
that spread a kind of witchery about the sex. — 
"Her life," said he, ''shall be like a fairy tale." 

The very difference in their characters produced an 
harmonious combination: he was of a romantic and 
somewhat serious cast; she was all life and gladness. 
I have often noticed the mute rapture with which he 
would gaze upon her in company, of which her spright- 
ly powers made her the delight ; and how, in the midst 
of applause, her eye would still turn to him, as if there 
alone she sought favor and acceptance. When 
leaning on his arm, her slender form contrasted finely 
with his tall manly person. The fond confiding air 
with which she looked up to him seemed to call forth 
a flush of triumphant pride and cherishing tenderness, 
as if he doted on his lovely burden for its very 
helplessness. Never did a couple set forward on the 
flowery path of early and well-suited marriage with 
a fairer prospect of felicity. 

It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to 
have embarked his property in large speculations; 
and he had not been married many months, when, by 
a succession of sudden disasters, it was swept from him 
and he found himself reduced almost to penury. For 
a time he kept his situation to himself, and went 
about with a haggard countenance, and a breaking 



THE WIFE 57 

heart. His life was but a protracted agony ; and what 
rendered it more insupportable was the necessity of 
keeping up a smile in the presence of his wife ; for he 
could not bring himself to overwhelm her with the 
news. She saw, however, with the quick eyes of 
affection, that all was not well with him. She marked 
his altered looks and stifled sighs, and was not to 
be deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at cheer- 
fulness. She tasked all her sprightly powers and 
tender blandishments to win him back to happiness; 
but she only drove the arrow deeper into his soul. 
The more he saw cause to love her, the more tor- 
turing was the thought that he was soon to make 
her wretched. A little while, thought he, and the 
smile will vanish from that cheek — the song will die 
away from those lips — the lustre of those eyes will be 
quenched with sorrow; and the happy heart, which 
now beats lightly in that bosom, will be weighed down 
like mine, by the cares and miseries of the world. 

At length he came to me one day, and related his 
whole situation in a tone of the deepest despair. 
When I heard him through I inquired, "Does your 
wife know all this?" — At the question he burst into 
an agony of tears. "For God's sake!" cried he, "if 
you have any pity on me, don't mention my wife; 
it is the thought of her that drives me almost to 
madness!" 

"And why not?" said I. "She must know it 
sooner or later ; you cannot keep it long from her, and 
the intelligence may break upon her in a more start- 



58 THE SKETCH BOOK 

ling manner, than if imparted by yourself; for the 
accents of those we love soften the hardest tidings. 
Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts 
of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also en- 
dangering the only bond that can keep hearts together 
— an unreserved community of thought and feeling. 
She will soon perceive that something is secretly prey- 
ing upon your mind; and true love will not brook 
reserve; it feels undervalued and outraged, when even 
the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it. 

"Oh, but, my friend! to think what a blow I am to 
give to all her future prospects — how I am to strike 
her very soul to the earth, by telling her that her 
husband is a beggar — that she is to forego all the 
elegancies of life — all the pleasures of society — to 
shrink with me into indigence and obscurity! To 
tell her that I have dragged her down from the sphere 
in which she might have continued to move in con- 
stant brightness — the light of every eye — the admira- 
tion of every heart! — How can she bear poverty? 
she has been brought up in all the refinements of 
opulence. How can she bear neglect? she has been 
the idol of society. Oh! it will break her heart — it 
will break her heart!" 

I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its 
flow; for sorrow relieves itself by words. ^ When his 
paroxysm had subsided, and he had relapsed into 
moody silence, I resumed the subject gently, and 
urged him to break his situation at once to his wife. 
He shook his head mournfully, but positively. 



THE WIFE 59 

"But how are you to keep it from her? It is neces- 
sary she should know it, that you may take the steps 
proper to the alteration of your circumstances. You 
must change your style of living — nay," observing a 
pang to pass across his countenance, "don't let that 
afflict you. I am sure you have never placed 3^our 
happiness in outward show — you have yet friends, 
warm friends, who will not think the worse of you 
for being less splendidly lodged : and surely it does not 
require a palace to be happy with Mary " 

"I could be happy with her, " cried he, convulsively, 
*'in a hovel! — I could go down with her into poverty 
and the dust! — I could— I could — God bless her! — 
God bless her!" cried he, bursting into a transport of 
grief and tenderness. 

"And believe me, my friend," said I, stepping up 
and grasping him warmly by the hand, "believe me, 
she can be the same with you. Ay, more: it will be a 
source of pride and triumph to her — it will call forth 
all the latent energies and fervent sympathies of her 
nature ; for she will rejoice to prove that she loves you 
for 3^ourself. There is in every true woman's heart a 
spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad 
daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and 
beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. No 
man knows what the wife of his bosom is — no man 
knows what a ministering angel she is — until he has 
gone with her through the fiery trials of this world." 

There was something in the earnestness of my man- 
ner, and the figurative style of my language, that 



6o THE SKETCH BOOK 

caught the excited imagination of Leslie. I knew the 
auditor I had to deal with; and following up the im- 
pression I had made, I finished by persuading him to 
go home and unburden his sad heart to his wife. 

I must confess, notwithstanding all I had said, I 
felt some little solicitude for the result. Who can 
calculate on the fortitude of one whose life has been a 
round of pleasures? Her gay spirits might revolt at 
the dark downward path of low humility suddenly 
pointed out before her, and might cling to the sunny 
regions in which they had hitherto revelled. Besides, 
ruin in fashionable life is accompanied by so many 
galling mortifications, to which in other ranks it is a 
stranger. — In short, I could not meet Leslie the next 
morning without trepidation. He had made the 
disclosure. 

"And how did she bear it?'* 

"Like an angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to 
her mind, for she threw her arms round my neck, and 
asked if this was all that had lately made me un- 
happy. — But, poor girl," added he, "she cannot 
reaHze the change we must undergo. She has no idea 
of poverty but in the abstract ; she has only read of it 
in poetry, where it is allied to love. She feels as yet 
no privation; she suffers no loss of accustomed con- 
veniences nor elegancies. When we come practically 
to experience its sordid cares, its paltry wants, its 
petty humiliations — then will be the real trial." 

"But," said I, "now that you have got over the 
severest task, that of breaking it to her, the sooner 



THE WIFF 6i 

you let the world into the secret the better. The 
disclosure may be mortifying; but then it is a single 
misery, and soon over: whereas you otherwise suffer 
it, in anticipation, every hour in the day. It is not 
^poverty so much as pretence, that harasses a ruined 
man — the struggle between a proud mind and an empty 
purse — the keeping up a hollow show that must soon 
come to an end. Have the courage to appear poor and 
you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting." On this 
point I found Leslie perfectly prepared. He had no 
false pride himself, and as to his wife, she was only 
anxious to conform to their altered fortunes. 

Some days afterwards he called upon me in the 
evening. He had disposed of his dwelling house, and 
taken a small cottage in the country, a few miles from 
town. He had been busied all day in sending out 
furniture. The new establishment required few ar- 
ticles, and those of the simplest kind. All the splendid 
furniture of his late residence had been sold, excepting 
his wife's harp. That, he said, was too closely 
associated with the idea of herself; it belonged to 
the little story of their loves ; for some of the sweet- 
est moments of their courtship were those when 
he had leaned over that instrument, and listened 
to the melting tones of her voice. I could not 
but smile at this instance of romantic gallantry in 
a doting husband. 

He was now going out to the cottage, where his 
wife had been all day superintending its arrangement. 
My feelings had become strongly interested in the 



62 THE SKETCH BOOK 

progress of this family story, and, as it was a fine 
evening, I offered to accompany him. 

He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and, 
as he walked out, fell into a fit of gloomy musing. 

"Poor Mary!" at length broke, with a heavy sigh, 
from his lips. 

"And what of her?" asked I: "has anything hap- 
pened to her?" 

"What," said he, darting an impatient glance, "is 
it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation — to 
be caged in a miserable cottage — to be obliged to toil 
almost in the menial concerns of her wretched habi- 
tation?" 

"Has she then repined at the change?" 

"Repined! she has been nothing but sweetness and 
good humor. Indeed, she seems in better spirits 
than I have ever known her; she has been to me all 
love, and tenderness, and comfort!" 

" Admirable girl ! " exclaimed I. "You call yourself 
poor, my friend; you never were so rich — you never 
knew the boundless treasures of excellence you possess 
in that woman. " 

"Oh! but, my friend, if this first meeting at the 
cottage were over, I think I could then be comfortable. 
But this is her first day of real experience; she has been 
introduced into a humble dwelling — she has been 
employed all day in arranging its miserable equip- 
ments — she has, for the first time, known the fatigues 
of domestic employment — she has, for the first time, 
looked round her on a home destitute of everything 



THE WIFE 63 

slegant,— almost of everything convenient; and may 
aow be sitting down, exhausted and spiritless, brood- 
ing over a prospect of future poverty." 

There was a degree of probability in this picture 
Ithat I could not gainsay, so we walked on in 
silence. 

After turning from the main road up a narrow lane, 
iso thickly shaded with forest trees as to give it a 
Icomplete air of seclusion, we came in sight of the cot- 
tage. It was humble enough in its appearance for 
the most pastoral poet; and yet it had a pleasing rural 
look. A wild vine had overrun one end with a pro- 
i fusion of foliage; a few trees threw their branches 
gracefully over it; and I observed several pots of 
flowers tastefully disposed about the door, and on the 
grass-plot in front. A small wicket gate opened 
upon a footpath that wound through some shrubbery 
to the door. Just as we approached, we heard the 
sound of music— Leslie grasped my arm; we paused 
and listened. It was Mary's voice singing, in a style 
of the most touching simpHcity, a little air of which 
her husband was peculiarly fond. 

I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. He stepped 
forward to hear more distinctly. His step made a 
noise on the gravel walk. A bright beautiful face 
glanced out at the window and vanished— a light 
footstep was heard— and Mary came tripping forth 
to meet us: she was in a pretty rural dress of white; 
a few wild flowers were twisted in her fine hair; a 
fresh bloom was on her check ; her whole countenance 



64 THE SKETCH BOOK 

beamed with smiles — I had never seen her look so 
lovely. 

" My dear George, " cried she, "I am so glad you are 
come! I have been watching and watching for you; 
and running down the lane, and looking out for you. 
I 've set out a table under a beautiful tree behind the 
cottage; and I Ve been gathering some of the most 
delicious strawberries, for I know you are fond of 
them — and we have such excellent cream — and every- 
thing is so sweet and still here — Oh!" said she, putting 
her arm within his, and looking up brightly in his 
face, ''Oh, we shall be so happy!" 

Poor Leslie was overcome. He caught her to his 
bosom — he folded his arms round her — he kissed her 
again and again — he could not speak, but the tears 
gushed into his eyes; and he has often assured me 
that though the world has since gone prosperously 
with him, and his life has, indeed, been a happy one, 
yet never has he experienced a moment of more 
exquisite felicity. 



RIP VAN WINKLE 

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER 

By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday, 

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre — 

Cartwright. 

[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was 
very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the man- 
ners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical 
researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among 
men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; 
whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, 
rich in that legendary lore, so invaluable to true history. When- 
ever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, 
snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading 
sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black- 
letter, and studied it with the zeal of a bookworm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the province 
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some 
years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary 
character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better 
than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, 
which indeed was a httle questioned on its first appearance, 
but has since been completely established; and it is now ad- 
mitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable 
authority. 

s 65 



66 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his 
work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm 
to his memory to say that his time might have been m.uch better 
employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride 
his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kicR up 
the dust a little in the eyes of his neighlDors, and grieve the spirit 
of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affec- 
tion; yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow 
than in anger, " and it begins to be suspected that he never 
intended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be 
appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folks, whose 
good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain bis- 
cuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on 
their new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for im- 
mortahty, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo 
Medal, or a Queen Anne's Farthing.] ^ 



Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must 
remember the Kaatskill Mountains.^ They are a 
dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, 
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling 
up to a noble height, and lording it over the surround- 
ing country. Every change of season, every change 
of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces 
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these 
mountains, and they are regarded by all the good 
wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the 
weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue 
and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear 
evening sky; but, sometimes, when the rest of the 
landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of 
gray vapors about their summits, which in the last 



RIP VAN WINKLE 67 

rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up Hke a 
crown of glory. 

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager 
may have descried the Hght smoke curHng up from 
a village,' whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, 
just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into 
the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little 
village of great antiquity, having been founded by 
some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the 
province, just about the beginning of the government 
of the good Peter Stuy vesant (may he rest in peace !) , 
and there were some of the houses of the original 
settlers standing within a few years, built of small 
yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed 
windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather- 
cocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very houses 
(which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn 
and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, 
while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, 
a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van 
Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles 
who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of 
Peter Stuy vesant, and accompanied him to the siege 
of Fort Christina.^ He inherited, however, but little 
of the martial character of his ancestors. I have 
observed that he was a simple good-natured man; he 
was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient 
henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circum- 
stance might be owing that meekness of spirit which 



68 THE SKETCH BOOK 

gained him such universal popularity; for those men 
are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, 
who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their 
tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malle- 
able in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; and a 
curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world 
for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffer- 
ing. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some re- 
spects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, 
Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all 
the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the 
amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; 
and never failed, whenever they talked those matters 
over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on 
Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, 
would shout with joy whenever he approached. He 
assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught 
them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them 
long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. When- 
ever he went dodging about the village, he was sur- 
rounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, 
clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks 
on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at 
him throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Rip's composition was an insuper- 
able aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could 
not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; 
for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and 
heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a. 



RIP VAN WINKLE 69 

murmur, even though he should not be encouraged 
by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece 
on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through 
woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to 
shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would 
never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest 
toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for 
husking^ Indian corn, or building stone-fences; the 
women of the village, too, used to employ him to run 
their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their 
less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a 
word Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business 
but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keep- 
ing his farm in order, he found it impossible. 

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his 
farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground 
m the whole country; everything about it went wrong, 
and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences 
were continually falling to pieces; his cow would 
either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds 
were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere 
else; the rain always made a point of setting in just 
as he had some out-door work to do; so that though 
his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his 
management, acre by acre, until there was little 
more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and 
potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in 
the neighborhood. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if 
they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin 



70 THE SKETCH BOOK 

begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the 
habits, with the old clothes of his father.' He was 
generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, 
equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins, 
which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a 
fine lady does her train in bad weather. 

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy 
mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take 
the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever 
can be got with least thought or trouble, and would 
rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If 
left to himself, he would have whistled life away in 
perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually 
dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, 
and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, 
noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and 
everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent 
of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of 
replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by fre- 
quent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his" 
shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said 
nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh 
volley from his wife ; so that he was fain to draw off 
his forces, and take to the outside of the house — the 
only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked 
husband. 

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, 
who was as much henpecked as his master ; for Dame 
Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, 
and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the 



RIP VAN WINKLE 71 

cause of his master's going so often astray. True it 
is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, 
he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the 
woods — but what courage can withstand the ever- 
during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? 
The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, 
his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his 
legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting 
many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at 
the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would 
fly to the door with yelping precipitation. 

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle 
as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never 
mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged 
tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long 
while he used to console himself, when driven from 
home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the 
sages, ^ philosophers, and other idle personages of the 
village; which held its sessions on a bench before a 
small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His 
Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit 
in the shade through a long lazy summer's day, 
talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless 
sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been 
worth any statesman's money to have heard the pro- 
found discussions that sometimes took place, when by 
chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from 
some passing traveller. How solemnly they would 
listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van 
Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper learned little 



72 THE SKETCH BOOK 

man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic 
word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would 
deliberate upon public events some months after they 
had taken place. 

The opinions of this junto were completely con- 
trolled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, 
and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took 
his seat from morning till night, just moving suffi- 
ciently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a 
large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by 
his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is 
true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his 
pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every 
great man has his adherents), perfectly understood 
him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When any- 
thing that was read or related displeased him, he 
was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to 
send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs; but 
when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly 
and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds ; 
and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, 
and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, 
would gravely nod his head in token of perfect 
approbation.^ 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at 
length routed by his termagant wife, who would sud- 
denly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage 
and call the members all to naught; nor was that 
august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred 
from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who 



RIP VAN WINKLE 73 

charged him outright with encouraging her husband 
in habits of idleness. 

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and 
his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the 
farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand 
and stroll av/ay into the woods. Here he would some- 
times seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the 
contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sym- 
pathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor 
Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a 
dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I 
live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by 
thee!" Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in 
his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity I verily 
believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his 
heart. 

In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, 
Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest 
parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was after his 
favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still soli- 
tudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of 
his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, 
late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with 
mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a pre- 
cipice. From an opening between the trees he could 
overlook all the lower country for many a mile of 
rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly 
Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but 
majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, 
or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping 



74 THE SKETCH BOOK 

on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the 
blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep moun- 
tain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled 
with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely 
lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For 
some time Rip lay musing on this scene ; evening was 
gradually advancing; the mountains began to throw 
their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that 
it would be dark long before he could reach the village, 
and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of en- 
countering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a 
distance, hallooing, "Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van 
Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing 
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the moun- 
tain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, 
and turned again to descend, when he heard the same 
cry ring through the still evening air: ''Rip Van Win- 
kle! Rip Van Winkle!" — at the same time Wolf 
bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked 
to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the 
glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing 
over him; he looked anxiously in the same direction, 
and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the 
rocks, and bending under the weight of something he 
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any 
human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, 
but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood 
in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 



RIP VAN WINKLE 75 

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the 
singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a 
short square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, 
and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique 
Dutch fashion — a cloth jerkin strapped round the 
waist — several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample 
volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the 
sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his 
shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and 
made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with 
the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this 
new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual 
alacrity; and mutually relieving one another, they 
clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed 
of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip every 
now and then heard long rolling peals, like distant 
thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or 
rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their 
rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, 
but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those 
transient thunder-showers which often take place in 
mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through 
the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphi- 
theatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over 
the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches 
so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and 
the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip 
and his companion had labored on in silence; for 
though the former marvelled greatly what could be 
the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild 



76 THE SKETCH BOOK 

mountain, yet there was something strange and in- 
comprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe 
and checked famiHarity. 

On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of 
wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the 
centre was a company of odd-looking personages 
playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint 
outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others 
jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of 
them had enormous breeches, of similar style with 
that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar: 
one had a large beard, broad face, and small piggish 
eyes: the face of another seemed to consist entirely 
of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf 
hat set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had 
beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one 
who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout 
old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; 
he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high- 
crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high- 
heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group 
reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, 
in the parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the village par- 
son, and which had been brought over from Holland 
at the time of the settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that 
though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, 
yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most 
mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melan- 
choly party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Noth- 



RIP VAN WINKLE 77; 

ing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise 
of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed 
along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, they 
suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him 
with such fixed statue-like gaze, and such strange, 
uncouth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart 
turned within him, and his knees smote together. 
His companion now emptied the contents of the keg 
into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait 
upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trem- 
bling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and 
then returned to their game. 

By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. 
He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, 
to taste the beverage, which he found had much of 
the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally 
a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the 
draught. One taste provoked another; and he re- 
iterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length 
his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his 
head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a 
deep sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He 
rubbed his eyes — it was a bright sunny morning. The 
birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, 
and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the 
pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I 
have not slept here all night. " He recalled the occur- 



78 THE SKETCH BOOK 

rences before he fell asleep. The strange man with 
a keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — the wild retreat 
among the rocks — the woe-begone party at nine-pins 
— the flagon — ' ' Oh ! that flagon ! that wicked flagon ! ' ' 
thought Rip — "what excuse shall I make to Dame 
Van Winkle!" 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the 
clean well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old fire- 
lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the 
lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now 
suspected that the grave roysters^ of the mountain 
had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with 
liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had 
disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a 
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and 
shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes re- 
peated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be 
seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last 
evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, 
to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he 
found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his 
usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree 
with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay 
me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a 
blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some 
difficulty he got down into the glen : he found the gully 
up which he and his companion had ascended the 
preceding evening ; but to his astonishment a mountain 
stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock 



RIP VAN WINKLE 79 

to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. 
He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, 
working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, 
sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up 
or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their 
coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind 
of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had 
opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no 
traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented 
a high impenetrable wall over which the torrent came 
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a 
broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the 
surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought 
to a stand. He again called and whistled after his 
dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock 
of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree 
that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in 
their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at 
the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? 
the morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished 
for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up 
his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it 
would not do to starve among the mountains. He 
shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, 
with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his 
steps homeward. 

As he approached the village he met a number of 
people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat 
surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted 



80 THE SKETCH BOOK 

with every one in the country round. Their dress, 
too, was of a different fashion from that to which he 
was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal 
marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes 
upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The con- 
stant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, invol- 
untarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, 
he found his beard had grown a foot long! 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A 
troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting 
after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, 
too, not one of which he recognized for an old acquain- 
tance, barked at him as he passed. The very village 
was altered ; it was larger and more populous. There 
were rows of houses which he had never seen before, 
and those which had been his familiar haunts had 
disappeared. Strange names were over the doors — ■ 
strange faces at the windows — everything was strange. 
His mind now misgave him ; he began to doubt whether 
both he and the world around him were not bewitched. 
Surely this was his native village, which he had left 
but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill Moun- 
tains — there ran the silver Hudson at a distance — ■ 
there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always 
been — Rip was sorely perplexed — "That flagon last 
night, " thought he, "has addled my poor head sadly!" 

It was with some difficulty that he found the way 
to his own house, which he approached with silent! 
awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice! 
of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to] 



RIP VAN WINKLE 8i 

decay — the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and 
the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that 
looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called 
him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, 
and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed — 
"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten 
me!" 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, 
Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It 
was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. 
This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears — 
he called loudly for his wife and children — the lonely 
chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then 
all again was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old 
resort, the village inn — but it too was gone. A large 
rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great 
gaping windows, some of them broken and mended 
with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was 
painted, "the Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." 
Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet 
little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall 
naked pole, with something on the top that looked 
like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, 
on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes 
— all this was strange and incomprehensible. He 
recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of 
King George, under which he had smoked so many a 
peaceful pipe; but even this was singularly metamor- 
phosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and 



82 THE SKETCH BOOK 

buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, 
the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and under- 
neath was painted in large characters, General 
Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, 
but none that Rip recollected. The very character 
of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, 
bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the 
accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He 
looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his 
broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering 
clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches; or 
Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the con- 
tents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a 
lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of 
handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights 
of citizens — elections — members of congress — liberty 
— Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other 
words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon^ to the 
bewildered Van Winkle. 

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, 
his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an 
army of women and children at his heels, soon at- 
tracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They 
crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot 
with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, 
and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which 
side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. 
Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by 
the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear. 



RIP VAN WINKLE 83 

"whether he wEvS Federal or Democrat?" Rip was 
equally at a loss to comprehend the question ; when a 
knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp 
cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, put- 
ting them to the right and left with his elbows as 
he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, 
with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, 
his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, 
into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, 
' ' what brought him to the election with a gun on his 
shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he 
meant to breed a riot in the village?" — "Alas! gen- 
tlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a 
poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal 
subject of the king, God bless him!" 

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — 
"A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away 
with him!" It was with great difficulty that the 
self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; 
and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, 
demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he 
came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor 
man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, 
but merely came there in search of some of his neigh- 
bors, who used to keep about the tavern. 

"Well — who are they? — name them." 

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, 
"Where 's Nicholas Vedder?" 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old 
man replied, in a thin piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! 



84 THE SKETCH BOOK 

why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! There 
was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that 
used to tell all about him, but that 's rotten and 
gone too." 

"Where 's Brom Butcher?" 

''Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the 
war; some say that he was killed at the storming of 
Stony Point — others say he was drowned in a squall 
at the foot of Anthony's Nose.^ I don't know — he 
never came back again." 

"Where 's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?" 

"He went off to the wars, too, was a great militia 
general, and is now in congress."^ 

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad 
changes in his home and friends, and finding himself 
thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him 
too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and 
of matters which he could not understand: war — 
congress — Stony Point; — he had no courage to ask 
after any more friends, but cried out in despair, 
"Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?" 

"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, 
"Oh, to be sure! that 's Rip Van Winkle yonder, 
leaning against the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of 
himself, as he went up the mountain: apparently as 
lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was 
now completely confounded. He doubted his own 
identity, and whether he was himself or another man. 
In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the 



RIP VAN WINKLE 85 

cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his 
name. 

"God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end; 
"I 'm not myself — I 'm somebody else — that 's me 
yonder — no — that 's somebody else got into my shoes 
■ — I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the 
mountain, and they 've changed my gun, and every- 
thing 's changed, and I 'm changed, and I can't tell 
what 's my name, or who I am!" 

The by-standers began now to look at each other, 
nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against 
their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about 
securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from 
doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the 
self-important man in the cocked hat retired with 
some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, 
comely woman pressed through the throng to get a 
peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby 
child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, 
began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you 
little fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name 
of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her 
voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his 
mind. "What is your name, my good woman?" 
asked he. 

"Judith Gardenier. " 

"And your father's name?" 

"Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but 
it 's twenty years since he went away from home with 
his gun, and never has been heard of since — his dog 



86 THE SKETCH BOOK 

came home without him ; but whether he shot himself, 
or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. 
I was then but a little girl." -I 

Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it 
with a faltering voice : 

"Where 's your mother?" 

"Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she 
broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-Eng- 
land peddler. " ^ 

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intel- 
ligence. The honest man could contain himself no 
longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his 
arms. "I am your father!" cried he — "Young Rip 
Van Winkle once — old Rip Van Winkle now! — Does 
nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?" 

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering 
out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, 
and peering under it in his face for a moment, ex- 
claimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle — it is 
himself! Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why, 
where have you been these twenty long years?" 

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty 
years had been to him but as one night. The neigh- 
bors stared when they heard it; some were seen to 
wink at each other, and put their tongues in their 
cheeks: and the self-important man in the cocked hat, 
who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the 
field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and. 
shook his head — upon which there was a general 
shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. 



RIP VAN WINKLE 87 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of 
old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing 
up the road. He was a descendant of the historian 
of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts 
of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabi- 
tant of the village, and well versed in all the wonder- 
ful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He 
recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in 
the most satisfactory manner. He assured the com- 
pany that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor 
the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always 
been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed 
that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer 
of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there 
every twenty years, with his crew of the Half- Moon; 
being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of 
his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river 
and the great city called by his name. That his father 
had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing 
at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain ; and that he 
himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound 
of their balls, Hke distant peals of thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up 
and returned to the more important concerns of the 
election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with 
her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a 
stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recol- 
lected for one of the urchins that used to cHmb upon 
his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the 
ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was 



88 THE SKETCH BOOK 

employed to work on the farm ; but evinced an heredi- 
tary disposition to attend to anything else but his 
business. 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon 
found many of his former cronies, though all rather 
the worse for the wear and tear of time ; and preferred 
making friends among the rising generation, with 
whom he soon grew into great favor. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived 
at that happy age when a man can be idle with im- 
punity, he took his place once more on the bench at 
the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the pa- 
triarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old 
times ''before the war." It was some time before 
he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could 
be made to comprehend the strange events that 
had taken place during his torpor. How that there 
had been a revolutionary war — that the country had 
thrown off the yoke of old England — and that, in- 
stead of being a subject of his Majesty George the 
Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. 
Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states 
and empires made but little impression on him; but 
there was one species of despotism under which he 
had long groaned, and that was — petticoat govern- 
ment. Happily that was at an end; he had got his 
neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in 
and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the 
tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name 
was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged 



RIP VAN WINKLE 89 

his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass 
either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or 
joy at his deHverance. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that 
arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, 
at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, 
which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently 
awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale 
I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in 
the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some al- 
ways pretended to doubt the reality of it and insisted 
that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was 
one point on which he always remained flighty. The 
old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally 
gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear 
a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the 
Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his 
crew are at their game of ninepins; and it is a com- 
mon wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighbor- 
hood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they 
might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's 
flagon. 

NOTE 

The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to 
Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the 
Emperor Frederick der Rothhart, and the Kypphaiiser mountain: 
the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the Tale, 
shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity: 

"The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, 
but rievertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity 



90 THE SKETCH BOOK 

of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to mar- 
vellous events and appearances. Indeed, I .have heard many- 
stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; 
all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. 
I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last 
I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational 
and consistent on every other point, that I think no conscien- 
tious person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I 
have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country jus- 
tice and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. 
The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of a doubt. 

"D. K." 

POSTSCRIPT 

The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-book 
of Mr. Knickerbocker: 

" The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a 
region full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of 
spirits, who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds 
over the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. 
They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. 
She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge of 
the doors of day and night to open and shut them at the proper 
hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut up the 
old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly propitiated, 
she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs and morn- 
ing dew, and send them off from the crest of the mountain, flake 
after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the air; until, 
dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in gentle showers, 
causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn to 
grow an inch an hour. If displeased, however, she would brew 
up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of them like a bottle- 
bellied spider in the midst of its web; and when these clouds 
broke, woe betide the valleys ! 

" In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of 



RIP VAN WINKLE 91 

Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the 
Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking 
all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes 
he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead the 
bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forests and 
among ragged rocks; and then spring off with a loud ho! ho! 
leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice or raging 
torrent. 

" The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a 
great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, 
from the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild 
flowers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name 
of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt 
of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on 
the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. This place 
was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that the bold- 
est hunter would not pursue his game within its precincts. Once 
upon a time, however, a hunter who had lost his way penetrated 
to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed 
in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized and made off 
with it, but in the hurry of his retreat he let it fall among the 
rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which washed him 
away and swept him down precipices, where he was dashed to 
pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, and con- 
tinues to flow to the present day; being the identical stream 
known by the name of the Kaaters-kill." 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, 
rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her 
invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her 
mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid- 
day beam. 

Milton on the Liberty of the Press. 

It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the 
literary animosity daily growing up between England 
and America. Great curiosity has been awakened 
of late with respect to the United States, and the 
London press has teemed with volumes of travels 
through the Republic; but they seem intended to 
diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so success- 
ful have they been, that, notwithstanding the con- 
stant intercourse between the nations, there is no 
people concerning whom the great mass of the British 
public have less pure information, or entertain more 
numerous prejudices. 

English travellers are the best and the worst in 
the world. Where no motives of pride or interest 
intervene, none can equal them for profound and 
philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphi- 
cal descriptions of external objects ; but when either the 
interest or reputation of their own country comes in 
collision with that of another, they go to the opposite 

92 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 93 

extreme and forget their usual probity and candor 
in the indulgence of splenetic remark, and an illiberal 
spirit of ridicule. 

Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, 
the more remote the country described. I would 
place implicit confidence in an Englishman's descrip- 
tions of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile; 
of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior 
of India; or of any other tract which other travellers 
might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their 
fancies ; but I would cautiously receive his account of 
his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with 
which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. 
However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I 
dare not trust his prejudices. 

It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to 
be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. 
While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds 
have been sent from England to ransack the poles, 
to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners 
and customs of barbarous nations, with which she can 
have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure; 
it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the 
scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the 
Manchester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles 
respecting America. From such sources she is content 
to receve her information respecting a country in a 
singular state of moral and physical development; a 
country in which one of the greatest political experi- 
ments in the history of the world is now performing; 



94 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and which presents the most profound and momentous 
studies to the statesman and the philosopher. 

That such men should give prejudicial accounts of 
America is not a matter of surprise. The themes it 
offers for contemplation are too vast and elevated for 
their capacities. The national character is yet in a 
state of fermentation ; it may have its frothiness and 
sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome ; 
it has already given proofs of powerful and generous 
qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into 
something substantially excellent. But the causes 
which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, 
and its daily indications of admirable properties, are 
ah lost upon these purblind observers; who are only 
affected by the little asperities incident to its present 
situation. They are capable of judging only of the 
surface of things; of those matters which come in 
contact with their private interests and personal 
gratifications. They miss some of the snug con- 
veniences and petty comforts which belong to an old, 
highly-finished, and over-populous state of society; 
where the ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many 
earn a painful and servile subsistence by studying the 
very caprices of appetite and self-indulgence. These 
minor comforts, however, are all-important in the 
estimation of narrow minds ; which either do not per- 
ceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more 
than counterbalanced among us by great and gen- 
erally diffused blessings. 

They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 95 

some unreasonable expectation of sudden gain. They 
may have pictured America to themselves an El 
Dorado,^ where gold and silver abounded, and the 
natives were lacking in sagacity ; and where they were 
to become strangely and suddenly rich, in some 
unforeseen, but easy manner. The same weakness of 
mind that indulges absurd expectations produces 
petulance in disappointment. Such persons become 
embittered against the country on finding that there, 
as everywhere else, a man must sow before he can 
reap ; must win wealth by industry and talent ; and 
must contend with the common difficulties of nature, 
and the shrewdness of an intelligent and enterpris- 
ing people. 

Perhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospital- 
ity, or from the prompt disposition to cheer and 
countenance the stranger, prevalent among my coun- 
trymen, they may have been treated with unwonted 
respect in America; and having been accustomed all 
their lives to consider themselves below the surface 
of good society, and brought up in a servile feeling of 
inferiority, they become arrogant on the common 
boon of civility: they attribute to the lowliness of 
others their own elevation; and underrate a society 
where there are no artificial distinctions, and where, 
by any chance, such individuals as themselves can 
rise to consequence. 

One would suppose, however, that information 
coming from such sources, on a subject where the 
truth is so desirable, would be received with caution 



96 THE SKETCH BOOK 

by the censors of the press; that the motives of these 
men, their veracity, their opportunities of inquiry and 
observation, and their capacities for judging correctly, 
would be rigorously scrutinized before their evidence 
was admitted, in such sweeping extent, against a 
kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the 
case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human 
inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with 
which English critics will examine the credibility of 
the traveller who publishes an account of some distant 
and comparatively unimportant country. How warily 
will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, 
or the descriptions of a ruin; and how sternly will 
they censure any inaccuracy in these contributions 
of merely curious knowledge: while they will receive, 
with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the gross' 
misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, 
concerning a country with which their own is placed 
in the most important and delicate relations. Nay, 
they will even make these apocryphal volumes text- 
books, on which to enlarge with a zeal and an ability 
worthy of a more generous cause. 

I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and 
hackneyed topic; nor should I have adverted to it, 
but for the undue interest apparently taken in it by 
my countrymen, and certain injurious effects which I 
apprehend it might produce upon the national feeling. 
We attach too much consequence to these attacks. 
They cannot do us any essential injury. The tissue 
of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 97 

us are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant 
giant. Our country continually outgrows them. One 
falsehood after another falls off of itself. We have 
but to live on, and every day we live a whole volume 
of refutation. 

All the writers of England united, if we could for a 
moment suppose their great minds stooping to so 
unworthy a combination, could not conceal our rapidly 
growing importance, and matchless prosperity. They 
could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to 
physical and local, but also to moral causes — to the 
political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, 
the prevalence of sound moral and religious principles, 
which give force and sustained energy to the character 
of a people; and which, in fact, have been the acknow- 
ledged and wonderful supporters of their own national 
power and glory. 

But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions 
of England? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so 
affected by the contumely she has endeavored to cast 
upon us? It is not in the opinion of England alone 
that honor lives, and reputation has its being. The 
world at large is the arbiter of a nation's fame ; with its 
thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's deeds, and from 
their collective testimony is national glory or national 
disgrace established. 

For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but 
little importance whether England does us justice 
or not; it is, perhaps, of far more importance to her- 
self. She is instilling anger and resentment into the 
7 



98 THE SKETCH BOOK 

bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth 
and strengthen with its strength. If in America, as 
some of her writers are laboring to convince her, she is 
hereafter to find an invidious rival, and a gigantic 
foe, she may thank those very writers for having 
provoked rivalship and irritated hostility. Every one 
knows the all-pervading influence of literature at the 
present day, and how much the opinions and passions 
of mankind are under its control. The mere contests 
of the sword are temporary; their wounds are but in 
the flesh, and it is the pride of the generous to forgive 
and forget them; but the slanders of the pen pierce 
to the heart ; they rankle longest in the noblest spirits ; 
they dwell ever present in the mind, and render it 
morbidly sensitive to the most trifling collision. It is 
but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities 
between two nations; there exists, most commonly, a 
previous jealousy and ill-will; a predisposition to 
take offence. Trace these to their cause, and how 
often will they be found to originate in the mis- 
chievous effusions of mercenary writers; who, secure 
in their closets, and for ignominious bread, concoct 
and circulate the venom that is to inflame the generous 
and the brave. 

I am not laying too much stress upon this point; 
for it applies most emphatically to our particular case. 
Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute 
control than over the people of America; for the uni- 
versal education of the poorest classes makes every 
individual a reader. There is nothing published in 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 99 

England on the subject of our country that does not 
circulate through every part of it. There is not a 
calumny dropped from English pen, nor an unworthy 
sarcasm uttered by an English statesman, that does 
not go to blight good- will, and add to the mass of 
latent resentment. Possessing, then, as England 
does, the fountain-head whence the literature of the 
language flows, how completely is it in her power, and 
how truly is it her duty, to make it the medium of 
amiable and magnanimous feeling — a stream where the 
two nations might meet together, and drink in peace 
and kindness. Should she, however, persist in turning 
it to waters of bitterness, the time may come when she 
may repent her folly. The present friendship of 
America may be of but little moment to her; but the 
future destinies of that country do not admit of a 
doubt; over those of England there lower some shad- 
ows of uncertainty. Should, then, a day of gloom 
arrive ; should these reverses overtake her, from which 
the proudest empires have not been exempt ; she may 
look back with regret at her infatuation, in repuls- 
ing from her side a nation she might have grappled 
to her bosom, and thus destroying her only chance 
for real friendship beyond the boundaries of her own 
dominions. 

There is a general impression in England, that the 
people of the United States are inimical to the parent 
country. It is one of the errors which have been 
diligently propagated by designing writers. There 
is doubtless, considerable political hostility, and a 



100 THE SKETCH BOOK 

general soreness at the illiberality of the English 
press; but, generally speaking, the prepossessions of 
the people are strongly in favor of England. Indeed, 
at one time, they amounted, in many parts of the 
Union, to an absurd degree of bigotry. The bare 
name of Englishman was a passport to the confidence 
and hospitality of every family, and too often gave a 
transient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. 
Throughout the country there was something of 
enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. 
We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness 
and veneration, as the land of our forefathers — the 
august repository of the monuments and antiquities 
of our race — the birthplace and mausoleum of the 
sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our 
own country, there was none in whose glory we more 
delighted — none whose good opinion we were more 
anxious to possess — none towards which our hearts 
yearned with such throbbings of warm consanguinity. 
Even during the late war, ^ whenever there was the least 
opportunity for kind feelings to spring forth, it was 
the delight of the generous spirits of our country to 
show that, in the midst of hostilities, they still kept 
alive the sparks of future friendship. 

Is all this to be at an end? Is this golden band of 
kindred sympathies, so rare between nations, to be 
broken forever? — Perhaps it is for the best — it may 
dispel an illusion which might have kept us in mental 
vassalage; which might have interfered occasionally 
with our true interests, and prevented the growth of 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA loi 

proper national pride. But it is hard to give up the 
kindred tie ! and there are feeHngs dearer than interest 
—closer to the heart than pride— that will still make 
us cast back a look of regret, as we wander farther and 
farther from the paternal roof, and lament the way- 
wardness of the parent that would repel the affections 
of the child. 

Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the 
conduct of England may be in this system of aspersion, 
recrimination on our part would be equally ill-judged. 
I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindication of our 
country, nor the keenest castigation of her slanderers — 
but I allude to a disposition to retaliate in kind ; to 
retort sarcasm, and inspire prejudice; which seems to 
be spreading widely among our writers. Let us guard 
particularly against such a temper, for it would double 
the evil instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is 
so easy and inviting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm ; 
but it is a paltry and an unprofitable contest. It is 
the alternative of a morbid mind, fretted into petu- 
lance, rather than warmed into indignation. If 
England is willing to permit the mean jealousies of 
trade, or the rancorous animosities of poHtics, to 
deprave the integrity of her press, and poison the 
fountain of public opinion, let us beware of her exam- 
ple. She may deem it her interest to diffuse error, 
and engender antipathy, for the purpose of checking 
emigration; we have no purpose of the kind to serve. 
Neither have we any spirit of national jealousy to 
gratify, for as yet, in all our rivalships with England, 



102 THE SKETCH BOOK 



we are the rising and the gaining party. There can be 
no end to answer, therefore, but the gratification of 
resentment — a mere spirit of retaliation ; and even that 
is impotent. Our retorts are never repubhshed in 
England; they fall short, therefore, of their aim; but 
they foster a querulous and peevish temper among our 
writers ; they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, 
and sow thorns and brambles among its blossoms. 
What is still worse, they circulate through our own 
country, and, as far as they have effect, excite viru- 
lent national prejudices. This last is the evil most 
especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, 
entirely by public opinion, the utmost care should be 
taken to preserve the purity of the public mind. 
Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever, 
therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, wilfully 
saps the foundation of his country's strength. 

The members of a republic, above all other men, 
should be candid and dispassionate. They are, individ- 
ually, portions of the sovereign mind and sovereign 
will, and should be enabled to come to all ques- 
tions of national concern with calm and unbiassed 
judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations 
with England, we must have more frequent questions 
of a difficult and delicate character with her than with 
any other nation ; questions that affect the most acute 
and excitable feelings; and as, in the adjusting of these 
our national measures must ultimately be determined 
by popular sentiment, we cannot be too anxiously atten- 
tive to purify it from all latent passion or prepossession. 



V 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 103 

Opening, too, as we do, an asylum for strangers 
from every portion of the earth, we should receive all 
with impartiality. It should be our pride to exhibit 
an example of one nation, at least, destitute of national 
antipathies, and exercising not merely the overt acts 
of hospitality, but those more rare and noble courte- 
sies which spring from liberality of opinion. 

What have we to do with national prejudices? 
They are the inveterate diseases of old countries, 
contracted in rude and ignorant ages, when nations 
knew but little of each other, and looked beyond 
their own boundaries with distrust and hostility. We, 
on the contrary, have sprung into national existence 
in an enlightened and philosophic age, when the differ- 
ent parts of the habitable world, and the various 
branches of the human family, have been indefatig- 
ably studied and made known to each other ; and we 
forego the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake 
off the national prejudices, as we would the local 
superstitions, of the old world. 

But above all let us not be influenced by any angry 
feelings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of 
what is really excellent and amiable in the English 
character. We are a young people, necessarily an 
imitative one, and must take our examples and models, 
in a great degree, from the existing nations of Europe. 
There is no country more worthy of our study than 
England. The spirit of her constitution is most 
analogous to ours. The manners of her people — 
their intellectual activity — their freedom of opinion — 



104 THE SKETCH BOOK 

their habits of thinking on those subjects which con- 
cern the dearest interests and most sacred charities 
of private Hfe, are all congenial to the American 
character; and, in fact, are all intrinsically excellent; 
for it is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep 
foundations of British prosperity are laid; and how- 
ever the superstructure may be timewom, or over- 
run by abuses, there must be something solid in the 
basis, admirable in the materials, and stable in the 
structure of an edifice, that so long has towered un- 
shaken amidst the tempests of the world. 

Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, dis- 
carding all feelings of irritation, and disdaining to 
retaliate the illiberality of British authors, to speak 
of the English nation without prejudice, and with 
determined candor. While they rebuke the indis- 
criminating bigotry with which some of our country- 
men admire and imitate everything English, merely 
because it is English, let them frankly point out what 
is really worthy of approbation. We may thus place 
England before us as a perpetual volume of reference, 
wherein are recorded sound deductions from ages of 
experience ; and while we avoid the errors and absur- 
dities which may have crept into the page, we may 
draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, 
wherewith to strengthen and to embelHsh our national 
character. 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND 

Oh! friendly to the best pursuits of man, 
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, 
Domestic life in rural pleasures past ! 

COWPER. 

The stranger who would form a correct opinion 
of the English character must not confine his obser- 
vations to the metropolis. He must go forth into the 
country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he 
must visit castles, villas, farmhouses, cottages; he 
must wander through parks and gardens; along 
hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country 
churches; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural 
festivals; and cope with the people in all their condi- 
tions, and all their habits and humors. 

In some countries the large cities absorb the wealth 
and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed 
abodes of elegant and intelHgent society, and the 
country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish 
peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metro- 
polis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, 
of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion 
of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, 
having indulged this kind of carnival, return again to 
the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. 

105 



io6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The various orders of society are therefore diffused 
over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most 
retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the differ- 
ent ranks. 

The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the 
rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the 
beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures "' 
and employments of the country. This passion 
seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of 
cities, bom and brought up among brick walls and 
bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, 
and evince a tact for rural occupation. The merchant 
has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, 
where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the 
cultivation of his flower-garden, and the maturing of 
his fruits, as he does in the conduct of his business, 
and the success of a commercial enterprise. Even 
those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to 
pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive 
to have something that shall remind them of the green 
aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quar- 
ters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles 
frequently a bank of flowers; every spot capable of 
vegetation has its grass-plot and flower-bed ; and every 
square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque 
taste, and gleaming with refreshing verdure. 

Those who see the Englishman only in town are 
apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social 
character. He is either absorbed in business, or dis- 
tracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND 107 

time, thought, and feeHng, in this huge metropoHs. 
He has, therefore, too commonly a look of hurry and 
abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the 
point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is 
talking on one subject, his mind is wandering to an- 
other; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calcu- 
lating how he shall economize time so as to pay the 
other visits allotted in the morning. An immense 
metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men 
selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and tran- 
sient meetings, they can but deal briefly in common- 
places. They present but the cold superficies of 
character — its rich and genial qualities have no time 
to be warmed into a flow. 

It is in the country that the Englishman gives 
scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose 
gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities 
of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and 
becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to 
collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies 
of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country- 
seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious 
retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. 
Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting 
implements of all kinds are at hand. He puts no 
constraint either upon his guests or himself, but in the 
true spirit of hospitality provides the means of en- 
joyment, and leaves every one to partake according 
to his inclination. 

The taste of the English in the ctiltivation of land, 



io8 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and in what is called landscape gardening, is unriv- 
alled. They have studied nature intently, and dis- 
cover an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and 
harmonious combinations. Those charms which in 
other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes are here 
assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They 
seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and 
spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes. 

Nothing can be more imposing than the mag- 
nificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that 
extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there 
clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of 
foliage: the solemn pomp of groves and woodland 
glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across 
them; the hare, bounding away to the covert; or the 
pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing: the brook, 
taught to wind in natural meanderings or expand into 
a glassy lake: the sequestered pool, reflecting the quiv- 
ering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, 
and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid 
waters; while some rustic temple or sylvan statue, 
grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classic 
sanctity to the seclusion. 

These are but a few of the features of park scenery ; 
but what most delights me is the creative talent with 
which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes 
of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most 
unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands 
of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. 
With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND 109 

upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the 
future landscape. The sterile spot grows into love- 
liness under his hand; and yet the operations of art 
which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. 
The cherishing and training of some trees ; the cautious 
pruning of others ; the nice distribution of flowers and 
plants of tender and graceful foliage ; the introduction 
of a green slope of velvet turf ; the partial opening to a 
peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water: all 
these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervad- 
ing yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings 
with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture. 

The residence of people of fortune and refinement 
in the country has diffused a degree of taste and ele- 
gance in rural economy, that descends to the lowest 
class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage 
and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellish- 
ment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, 
the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the wood- 
bine trained up against the wall, and hanging its 
blossoms about the lattice, the pot of flowers in the 
window, the holly, providently planted about the 
house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw 
in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside : 
all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down 
from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels 
of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, 
delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of 
an English peasant. 

The fondness for rural life among the higher classes 



no THE SKETCH BOOK 

of the English has had a great and salutary effect 
upon the national character. I do not know a finer 
race of men than the English gentlemen. Instead of 
the softness and effeminacy which characterize th( 
men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union 
of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and 
freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to 
attribute to their living so much in the open air, and 
pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of 
the country. These hardy exercises produce also a 
healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness 
and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and 
dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and 
can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the 
different orders of society seem to approach more 
freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate 
favorably upon each other. The distinctions be- 
tween them do not appear to be so marked and impas- 
sable as in the cities. The manner in which property 
has been distributed into small estates and farms has 
established- a regular gradation from the nobleman, 
through the classes of gentry, small landed proprie- 
tors, and substantial farmers, down to the laboring 
peasantry; and while it has thus banded the extremes 
of society together, has infused into each intermediate 
rank a spirit of independence. This, it must be 
confessed, is not so universally the case at present as 
it was formerly ; the larger estates having, in late years 
of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts 
of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy race of 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND in 

small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but 
casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned. 

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and 
debasing. It leads a man forth among scenes of 
natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the 
workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest 
and most elevating of external influences. Such a 
man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be 
vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds 
nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower 
orders in rural life, as he does when he casually 
mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays 
aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the 
distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest, 
heartfelt enjoyments of common Hfe. Indeed the 
very amusements of the country bring men more and 
more together; and the sounds of hound and horn 
blend all feelings into harmony. I beHeve this is one 
great reason why the nobility and gentry are more 
popular among the inferior orders in England than they 
are in any other country; and why the latter have 
endured so many excessive pressures and extremities, 
without repining more generally at the tmequal dis- 
tribution of fortune and privilege. 

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society 
may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs 
through British literature; the frequent use of illus- 
trations from rural life; those incomparable descrip- 
tions of nature that abound in the British poets, 
that have continued down from "the Flower and the 



112 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Leaf " ^ of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets 
all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. 
The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if 
they had paid nature an occasional visit, and become 
acquainted with her general charms; but the British 
poets have lived and revelled with her — they have 
wooed her in her most secret haunts — they have 
watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not 
tremble in the breeze — a leaf could not rustle to the 
ground — a diamond drop could not patter in the 
stream — a fragrance could not exhale from the humble 
violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the 
morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned 
and delicate observers, and wrought up into some 
beautiful morality. 

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to 
rural occupations has been wonderful on the face 
of the country. A great part of the island is rather 
level, and would be monotonous, were it not for the 
charms of culture: but it is studded and gemmed, as 
it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered 
with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand 
and sublime prospects, but rather in little home 
scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every 
antique farmhouse and moss-grown cottage is a 
picture: and as the roads are continually winding, 
and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye 
is delighted by a continual succession of small land- 
scapes of captivating loveliness. 

The great charm, however, of English scenery is 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND 113 

the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is 
associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, 
of sober well-established principles, of hoary usage 
and reverend custom. Everything seems to be the 
growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. 
The old church of remote architecture, with its low 
massive portal ; its gothic tower ; its windows rich with 
tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous preservation; 
its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of 
the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the 
soil; its tombstones, recording successive generations 
of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the 
same fields, and kneel at the same altar — the parson- 
age, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but 
repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and 
occupants — the stile and footpath leading from the 
churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shady 
hedgerows, according to an immemorial right of way 
— the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, 
its public green sheltered by trees, under which the 
forefathers of the present race have sported — the 
antique family mansion, standing apart in some little 
rural domain, but looking down with a protecting 
air on the surrounding scene: all these common fea- 
tures of English landscape evince a calm and settled 
security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred 
virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply 
and touchingly for the moral character of the nation. 
It is a pleasing sight of a Sunday morning, when the 
bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields. 



114 THE SKETCH BOOK 

to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with 
ruddy faces and modest cheerfulness, thronging tran- 
quilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still 
more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering 
about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult 
in the humble comforts and embellishments which 
their own hands have spread around them. 

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of 
affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, 
the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoy- 
ments; and I cannot close these desultory remarks 
better, than by quoting the words of a modern English 
poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity: 

Through each gradation, from the castled hall, 
The city dome, the villa crown'd with shade, 
But chief from modest mansions numberless, 
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, 
Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof 'd shed; 
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes 
Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place; 
Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove, 
(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard,) 
Can centre in a little quiet nest 
All that desire would fly for through the earth ; 
That can, the world eluding, be itself 
A world enjoy 'd; that wants no witnesses 
But its own sharers, and approving heaven; 
That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft, 
Smiles, though 't is looking only at the sky.* 

* From a Poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the 
Reverend Rann Kennedy, A.M 



THE BROKEN HEART 

I never heard 
Of any true affection, but 't was nipt 
With care, that, Hke the caterpillar, eats 
The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose. 

MiDDLETON. 

It is a common practice with those who have 
outHved the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been 
brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, 
to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of 
romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and 
poets. My observations on human nature have 
induced me to think otherwise. They have con- 
vinced me that, however the surface of the character 
may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, 
or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, 
still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of 
the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, 
become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in 
their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the 
blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. 
Shall I confess it? — I believe in broken hearts, and the 
possibility of dying of disappointed love. I do not, 
however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own 
sex ; but I firmly believe that it withers down many a 
lovely woman into an early grave. 

115 



ii6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His 
nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle 
of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his 
early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. 
He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's 
thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a 
woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The 
heart is her world : it is there her ambition strives for 
empire ; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treas- 
ures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; 
she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection ; 
and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a 
bankruptcy of the heart. 

To a man the disappointment of love may occasion 
some bitter pangs : it wounds some feelings of tender- 
ness — it blasts some prospects of felicity ; but he is an 
active being — he may dissipate his thoughts in the 
whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the 
tide of pleasure ; or, if the scene of disappointment be 
too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode 
at will, and taking as it were the wings of the morning 
can "fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at 
rest." 

But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and 
meditative life. She is more the companion of her own 
thoughts and feelings ; and if they are turned to minis- 
ters of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? 
Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her 
love, her heart is like some fortress that has been cap- 
tured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate. 



THE BROKEN HEART 117 

How many bright eyes grow dim — how many soft 
cheeks grow pale — how many lovely forms fade away 
into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted 
their loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings to 
its side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is 
preying on its vitals, so is it the nature of woman to 
hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. 
The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. 
Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to 
herself ; but when otherwise, she buries it in the re- 
cesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood 
among the ruins of her peace. With her the desire of 
the heart has failed. The great charm of existence 
is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises 
which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and 
send the tide of life in healthful currents through the 
veins. Her rest is broken — the sweet refreshment of 
sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams — "dry 
sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame 
sinks under the sHghtest external injury. Look for 
her, after a little while, and you find friendship weep- 
ing over her untimely grave, and wondering that one 
who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health 
and beauty should so speedily be brought down to 
"darkness and the worm." You will be told of some 
wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her 
low ; — but no one knows of the mental malady which 
previously sapped her strength, and made her so 
easy a prey to the spoiler. 

She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty 



Ii8 THE SKETCH BOOK 



ge, I 



of the grove; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage 
but with the worm preying at its heart. We find it 
suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh 
and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to 
the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf, until, wasted and 
perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the 
forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we 
strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that 
could have smitten it with decay. 

I have seen many instances of women running to 
waste and self -neglect, and disappearing gradually 
from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled 
to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied that I could 
trace their death through the various declensions of 
consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, 
until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. 
But an instance of the kind was lately told to me ; the 
circumstances are well known in the country where 
they happened, and I shall but give them in the man- 
ner in which they were related. 

Every one must recollect the tragical story of young 

E , ^ the Irish patriot ; it was too touching to be soon 

forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was 
tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of trea- 
son. His fate made a deep impression on public 
sympathy. He was so young — so intelligent — so 
generous — so brave — so everything that we are apt 
to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, 
was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation 
with which he repelled the charge of treason against 



THE BROKEN HEART 119 

his country — the eloquent vindication of his name — 
and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless 
hour of condemnation — all these entered deeply into 
every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented 
the stern policy that dictated his execution. 

But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be 
impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer 
fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful 
and interesting girl, the daughter of a late cele- 
brated Irish barrister. She loved him with the dis- 
interested fervor of a woman's first and early love. 
When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against 
him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger 
darkened around his name, she loved him the more 
ardently for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate 
could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what 
must have been the agony of her, whose whole soul 
was occupied by his image! Let those tell who have 
had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between 
them and the being they most loved on earth — who 
have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold 
and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely 
and loving had departed. 

But then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, 
so dishonored ! there was nothing for memory to dwell 
on that could soothe the pang of separation — none of 
those tender though melancholy circumstances, which 
endear the parting scene — nothing to melt sorrow 
into those blessed tears, sent like the dews of heaven 
to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish. 



120 THE SKETCH BOOK 

To render her widowed situation more desolate, 
she had incurred her father's displeasure by her un- 
fortunate attachment, and was an exile from the 
paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind 
offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and 
driven in by horror, she would have experienced no 
want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick 
and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and 
cherishing attentions were paid her by families of 
wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and 
they tried by all kinds of occupation and amusement to 
dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical 
story of her love. But it was all in vain. There are 
some strokes of calamity which scathe and scorch 
the soul — which penetrate to the vital seat of happiness 
— and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blos- 
som. She never objected to frequent the haunts of 
pleasure, but was as much alone there as in the depths 
of solitude; walking about in a sad reverie, apparently 
unconscious of the world around her. She carried 
with her an inward woe that mocked at all the bland- 
ishments of friendship, and "heeded not the song of 
the charmer, charm he never so wisely." 

The person who told me her story had seen her at a 
masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone 
wretchedness more striking and painful than to 
meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering Hke a 
spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay — 
to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and 
looking so wan and woebegone, as if it had tried in 



THE BROKEN HEART 121 

vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary for- 
getfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the 
splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter 
abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an 
orchestra, and, looking about for some time with a 
vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish 
scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly 
heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an 
exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, 
so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretched- 
ness, that she drew a crowd mute and silent around 
her, and melted every one into tears. 

The story of one so true and tender could not but 
excite great interest in a country remarkable for 
enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave 
officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought 
that one so true to the dead could not but prove af- 
fectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, 
for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the 
memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted 
in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her 
esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his 
worth, and her sense of her own destitute and de- 
pendent situation, for she was existing on the kindness 
of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in 
gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance, 
that her heart was unalterably another's. 

He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change 
of scene might wear out the remembrance of early 
woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, 



122 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing 
could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that 
had entered into her very soul. She wasted away 
in a slow but hopeless decline, and at length sunk 
into the grave, the victim of a broken heart. 

It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish 
poet, composed the following lines: 

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 

And lovers around her are sighing ; 
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, 

For her heart in his grave is lying. 

She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains, 

Every note which he loved awaking — 
Ah ! little they think, who delight in her strains, 

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking ! 

He had lived for his love — for his country he died, 
They were all that to life had entwined him — 

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried. 
Nor long will his love stay behind him ! 

Oh ! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest. 
When they promise a glorious morrow ; 

They '11 shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west. 
From her own loved island of sorrow ! 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 

If that severe doom of Synesius be true — "It is a greater 
offence to steal dead men's labor, than their clothes," what shall 
become of most writers? 

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 

I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity 
of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many- 
heads, on which nature seemed to have inflicted the 
curse of barrenness, should teem with voluminous 
productions. As a man travels on, however, in the 
journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, 
and he is continually finding out some very simple 
cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have 
I chanced, in my peregrinations about this great me- 
tropolis, to blunder upon a scene which unfolded to 
me some of the mysteries of the book-making craft, 
and at once put an end to my astonishment. 

I was one summer's day loitering through the great 
saloons of the British Museum, with that Hstlessness 
with which one is apt to saunter about a museum in 
warm weather; sometimes lolling over the glass cases 
of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on 
an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes trying, with 
nearly equal success, to comprehend the allegorical 
paintings on the lofty ceilings. Whilst I was gazing 
about in this idle way, my attention was attracted 

123 



124 THE SKETCH BOOK 

to a distant door, at the end of a suite of apartments. 
It was closed, but every now and then it would open, 
and some strange-favored being, generally clothed in 
black, would steal forth, and glide through the rooms, 
without noticing any of the surrounding objects. 
There was an air of mystery about this that piqued 
my languid curiosity, and I determined to attempt 
the passage of that strait, and to explore the unknown 
regions beyond. The door yielded to my hand, 
with that facility with which the portals of enchanted 
castles yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I 
found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded with 
great cases of venerable books. Above the cases, 
and just under the cornice, were arranged a great 
number of black-looking portraits of ancient authors. 
About the room were placed long tables, with stands 
for reading and writing, at which sat many pale, 
studious personages, poring intently over dusty 
volumes, rummaging among mouldy manuscripts, 
and taking copious notes of their contents. A hushed 
stillness reigned through this mysterious apartment, 
excepting that you might hear the racing of pens over 
sheets of paper, or, occasionally, the deep sigh of one 
of these sages, as he shifted his position to turn over 
the page of an old folio; doubtless arising from that 
hoUowness and flatulency incident to learned research. 
Now and then one of these personages would 
write something on a small slip of paper, and ring a 
bell, whereupon a familiar would appear, take the 
paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 125 

return shortly loaded with ponderous tomes, upon 
which the other would fall tooth and nail with fam- 
ished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had 
happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in 
the study of occult sciences. The scene reminded me 
of an old Arabian tale, of a philosopher shut up in an 
enchanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, which 
opened only once a year; where he made the spirits of 
the place bring him books of all kinds of dark know- 
ledge, so that at the end of the year, when the magic 
portal once more swung open on its hinges, he issued 
forth so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar 
above the heads of the multitude, and to control 
the powers of nature. 

My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered 
to one of the familiars, as he was about to leave the 
room, and begged an interpretation of the strange 
scene before me. A few words were sufficient for 
the purpose. I found that these mysterious person- 
ages, whom I had mistaken for magi, were principally 
avithors, and in the very act of manufacturing books. 
I was, in fact, in the reading room of the great British 
Library — an immense collection of volumes of all 
ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, 
and most of which are seldom read: one of those 
sequestered pools of obsolete literature, to which 
modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of 
classic lore, or "pure English, undefiled, "^ wherev/ith 
to swell their own scanty rills of thought. 

Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in 



126 THE SKETCH BOOK 

a corner, and watched the process of this book manu- 
facture. I noticed one lean, biHous-looking wight, 
who sought none but the most worm-eaten volumes, 
printed in black-letter. He was evidently construct- 
ing some work of profound erudition, that would be 
purchased by every man who wished to be thought 
learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, 
or laid open upon his table; but never read. I ob- 
served him, now and then, draw a large fragment of 
biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether it was 
his dinner, or whether he was endeavoring to keep 
off that exhaustion of the stomach produced by much 
pondering over dry works, I leave to harder students 
than myself to determine. 

There was one dapper little gentleman in bright- 
colored clothes, with a chirping, gossiping expression 
of countenance, who had all the appearance of an 
author on good terms with his bookseller. After 
considering him attentively, I recognized in him a 
diligent getter-up of miscellaneous works, which 
bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see 
how he manufactured his wares. He made more 
stir and show of business than any of the others ; 
dipping into various books, fluttering over the leaves 
of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel 
out of another, "line upon line, precept upon precept, 
here a little and there a little."^ The contents of 
his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the 
witches' caldron^ in Macbeth. It was here a finger 
and there a thumb, toe of frog and blind- worm's sting, 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 127 

with his own gossip poured in like "baboon's blood," 
to make the medley "slab and good." 

After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposi- 
tion be implanted in authors for wise purposes ; may it 
not be the way in which Providence has taken care that 
the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved 
from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the 
works in which they were first produced? We see 
that nature has wisely, though whimsically, provided 
for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the 
maws of certain birds; so that animals which, in them- 
selves, are little better than carrion, and apparently 
the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the cornfield, 
are, in fact, nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate 
her blessings. In like manner, the beauties and fine 
thoughts of ancient and obsolete authors are caught up 
by these flights of predatory writers, and cast forth 
again to flourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant 
tract of time. Many of their works, also, undergo a 
kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new 
forms. What was formerly a ponderous history re- 
vives in the shape of a romance' — an old legend changes 
into a modern play — and a sober philosophical treatise 
furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and 
sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our 
American woodlands; where we burn down a forest 
of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in 
their place: and we never see the prostrate trunk of a 
tree mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to a whole 
tribe of fungi. 



128 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Let us not, then, lament over the decay and obHvion 
into which ancient writers descend; they do but sub- 
mit to the great law of nature, which declares that all 
sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their' 
duration, but which decrees, also, that their elements, 
shall never perish. Generation after generation, both] 
in animal and vegetable life, passes away, but the vital 
principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species 
continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget 
authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in 
a good old age they sleep with their fathers, that is to 
say, with the authors who preceded them — and from 
whom they had stolen. 

Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies, I 
had leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. 
Whether it was owing to the soporific emanations from, 
these works ; or to the profound quiet of the room ; or 
to the lassitude arising from much wandering; or 
to an unlucky habit of napping at improper times and 
places, with which I am grievously afflicted, so it was, 
that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my imagination 
continued busy, and indeed the same scene remained 
before my mind's eye, only a little changed in some of 
the details. I dreamt that the chamber was still 
decorated with the portraits of ancient authors, but 
that the number was increased. The long tables had 
disappeared, and, in place of the sage magi, I beheld a 
ragged, threadbare throng, such as may be seen plying 
about the great repository of cast-off clothes, Mon- 
mouth-street. Whenever they seized upon a book, by 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 129 

one of those incongruities common to dreams, me- 
thought it turned into a garment of foreign or antique 
fashion, with which they proceeded to equip them- 
selves. I noticed, however, that no one pretended to 
clothe himself from any particular suit, but took a 
sleeve from one, a cape from another, a skirt from a 
third, thus decking himself out piecemeal, while some 
of his original rags would peep out from among his 
borrowed finery. 

There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I 
observed ogling several mouldy polemical writers 
through an eye-glass. He soon contrived to slip on the 
voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers, and, hav- 
ing purloined the gray beard of another, endeavored 
to look exceedingly wise; but the smirking common- 
place of his countenance set at naught all the trappings 
of wisdom. One sickly-looking gentleman was busied 
embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread 
drawn out of several old court-dresses of the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth. Another had trimmed himself 
magnificently from an illuminated manuscript, had 
stuck a nosegay in his bosom, culled from TJie 
Paradise of Daintie Devices,^ and having put Sir 
Philip Sidney's^ hat on one side of his head, strutted 
off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A 
third, who was but of puny dimensions, had bol- 
stered himself out bravely with the spoils from 
several obscure tracts of philosophy, so that he 
had a very imposing front ; but he was lamentably 
tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had patched 



136 THE SKETCH BOOK 

his small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a 
Latin author. 

There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, 
who only helped themselves to a gem or so, which 
sparkled among their own ornaments, without eclips- 
ing them. Some, too, seemed to contemplate the 
costumes of the old writers, merely to imbibe their 
principles of taste, and to catch their air and spirit ; but 
I grieve to say that too many were apt to array them- 
selves from top to toe in the patchwork manner I have 
mentioned. I shall not omit to speak of one genius, 
in drab breeches and gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, 
who had a violent propensity to the pastoral, but 
whose rural wanderings had been confined to the clas- 
sic haunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the 
Regent's Park.^ He had decked himself in wreaths 
and ribbons from all the old pastoral poets, and, hang- 
ing his head on one side, went about with a fantastical 
lack-a-daisical air, "babbling about green fields."^ 
But the personage that most struck my attention 
was a pragmatical old gentleman, in clerical robes, 
with a remarkably large and square, but bald head. 
He entered the room wheezing and puffing, el- 
bowed his way through the throng, with a look 
of sturdy self-confidence, and having laid hands 
upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped it upon his head, 
and swept majestically away in a formidable frizzled 
wig. 

In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry sud- 
denly resounded from every side, of "Thieves! 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 131 

thieves ! " I looked, and lo ! the portraits about the wall 
became animated! The old authors thrust out first 
a head, then a shoulder, from the canvas, looked 
down curiously, for an instant, upon the motley throng, 
and then descended with fury in their eyes, to claim 
their rifled property. The scene of scampering and 
hubbub that ensued baffles all description. The un- 
happy culprits endeavored in vain to escape with their 
plunder. On one side might be seen half a dozen old 
monks, stripping a modern professor ; on another, there 
was sad devastation carried into the ranks of modern 
dramatic writers. Beaumont and Fletcher,^ side by 
side, raged round the field like Castor and Pollux,^ and 
sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a 
volunteer with the army in Flanders. As to the dap- 
per 'ittle compiler of farragos, mentioned some time 
since, he had arrayed himself in as many patches and 
colors as Harlequin,^ and there was as fierce a conten- 
tion of claimants about him as about the dead body of 
Patroclus. ^ I was grieved to see many men, to whom I 
had been accustomed to look up with awe and rever- 
ence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their 
nakedness. Just then my eye was caught by the 
pragmatical old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, 
who was scrambling away in sore affright with half a 
score of authors in full cry after him ! They were close 
upon his haunches : in a twinkling off went his wig ; at 
every turn some strip of raiment was peeled away; un- 
til in a few moments, from his domineering pomp, he 
shrunk into a Httle, purs}^ "chopped bald shot, "^ and 



132 THE SKETCH BOOK 

made his exit with only a few tags and rags fluttering 
at his back. 

There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe 
of this learned Theban, ^ that I burst into an immoder- 
ate fit of laughter, which broke the whole illusion. 
The tumult and the scuffle were at an end. The 
chamber resumed its usual appearance. The old 
authors shrunk back into their picture-frames, and 
hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short, 
I found myself wide awake in my corner, with the 
whole assemblage of book-worms gazing at me with 
astonishment. Nothing of the dream had been real 
but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard 
in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears 
of wisdom, as to electrify the fraternity. 

The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded 
whether I had a card of admission. At first I did not 
comprehend him, but I soon found that the library 
was a kind of literary "preserve," subject to game- 
laws, and that no one must presume to hunt there with- 
out special license and permission. In a word, I stood 
convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was glad to 
make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole 
pack of authors let loose upon me. 



A ROYAL POET 

Though your body be confined, 

And soft love a prisoner bound, 
Yet the beauty of your mind 

Neither check nor chain hath found. 
Look out nobly, then, and dare 
Even the fetters that you wear. 

Fletcher. 

On a soft sunny morning in the genial month of 
May, I made an excursion to Windsor Castle. It is a 
place full of storied and poetical associations. The 
very external aspect of the proud old pile is enough 
to inspire high thought. It rears its irregular walls 
and massive towers, like a mural crown, round the 
brow of a lofty ridge, waves its royal banner in the 
clouds, and looks down, with a lordly air, upon 
the surrounding world. 

On this morning the weather was of that voluptuous 
vernal kind which calls forth all the latent romance of 
a man's temperament, filling his mind with music, and 
disposing him to quote poetry and dream of beauty. 
In wandering through the magnificent saloons and 
long echoing galleries of the castle, I passed with in- 
difference by whole rows of portraits of warriors and 
statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where hang the 
likenesses of the beauties which graced the gay Court 

133 



134 THE SKETCH BOOK 

of Charles the Second;^ and as I gazed upon them, 
depicted with amorous, half-dishevelled tresses, and 
the sleepy eye of love, I blessed the pencil of Sir Peter 
Lely,^ which had thus enabled me to bask in the re- 
flected rays of beauty. In traversing also the "large 
green courts," with sunshine beaming on the gray walls 
and glancing along the velvet turf, my mind was en- 
grossed with the image of the tender, the gallant, but 
hapless Surrey,^ and his account of his loiterings about 
them in his stripling days, when enamored of the 
Lady Geraldine — 

With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower, 
With easie sighs, such as men draw in love. 

In this mood of mere poetical susceptibility, I visited 
the ancient Keep of the castle, where James the First 
of Scotland/ the pride and theme of Scottish poets and 
historians, was for many years of his youth detained 
a prisoner of state. It is a large gray tower, that has 
stood the brunt of ages, and is still in good preserva- 
tion. It stands on a mound, which elevates it above 
the other parts of the castle, and a great flight of steps 
leads to the interior. In the armory, a Gothic hall, 
furnished with weapons of various kinds and ages, I 
was shown a coat of armor hanging against the wall, 
which had once belonged to James. Hence I was 
conducted up a staircase to a suite of apartments of 
faded magnificence, hung with storied tapestry, which 
formed his prison, and the scene of that passionate and 



A ROYAL POET 135 

fanciful amour, which has woven into the web of his 
story the magical hues of poetry and fiction. 

The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate 
prince is highly romantic. At the tender age of eleven 
he was sent from home by his father, Robert III., and 
destined for the French court, to be reared under 
the eye of the French monarch, secure from the 
treachery and danger that surrounded the royal 
house of Scotland. It was his mishap in the course 
of his voyage to fall into the hands of the English, 
and he was detained prisoner by Henry IV., ^ 
notwithstanding that a truce existed between the 
two countries. 

The intelligence of his capture, coming in the train 
of many sorrows and disasters, proved fatal to his 
unhappy father. "The news," we are told, "was 
brought to him while at supper, and did so overwhelm 
him with grief that he was almost ready to give up the 
ghost into the hands of the servant that attended him. 
But being carried to his bedchamber, he abstained 
from all food, and in three days died of hunger and 
grief at Rothesay."* 

James was detained in captivity about eighteen 
years ; but though deprived of personal liberty, he was 
treated with the respect due to his rank. Care was 
taken to instruct him in all the branches of useful 
knowledge cultivated at that period, and to give him 
those mental and personal accomplishments deemed 

* Buchanan. 



136 THEJKETCH BOOK 

proper for a prince. Perhaps, in this respect, his im- 
prisonment was an advantage, as it enabled him to 
apply himself the more exclusively to his improve- 
ment, and quietly to imbibe that rich fund of know- 
ledge, and to cherish those elegant tastes, which have 
given such a lustre to his memory. The picture 
drawn of him in early life, by the Scottish historians, 
is highly captivating, and seems rather the description 
of a hero of romance, than of a character in real his- 
tory. He was well learnt, we are told, *Ho fight with 
the sword, to joust, to tourney, to wrestle, to sing and 
dance; he was an expert mediciner, right crafty in 
playing both of lute and harp, and sundry other in- 
struments of music, and was expert in grammar, ora- 
tory, and poetry."* 

With this combination of manly and delicate ac- 
complishments, fitting him to shine both in active and 
elegant life, and calculated to give him an intense relish 
for joyous existence, it must have been a severe trial, 
in an age of bustle and chivalry, to pass the spring- 
time of his years in monotonous captivity. It was 
the good fortune of James, however, to be gifted with 
a powerful poetic fancy, and to be visited in his prison 
by the choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds 
corrode and grow inactive, under the loss of personal 
liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the 
nature of the poet to become tender and imaginative 
in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon 

* Ballenden's Translation of Hector Boyce. 



A ROYAL POET 137 

the honey of his own thoughts, and, Hke the captive 
bird, pours forth his soul in melody. 

Have you not seen the nightingale, 

A pilgrim coop'd into a cage, 
How doth she chant her wonted tale, 
In that her lonely hermitage ! 
Even there her charming melody doth prove 
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.* 

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination 
that it is irrepressible, unconfinable ; that when the 
real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, 
and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious 
shapes and forms, and brilliant visions, to make soli- 
tude populous, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. 
Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived 
round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, ^ when he con- 
ceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem ; and we may 
consider the " King's Quair,"^ composed by James, dur- 
ing his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beau- 
tiful breakings-forth of the soul from the restraint and 
gloom of the prison house. 

The subject of the poem is his love for the Lady Jane 
Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and a 
princess of the blood royal of England, of whom he 
became enamored in the course of his captivity. What 
gives it a peculiar value, is that it may be considered a 
transcript of the royal bard's true feelings, and the 

* Roger L'Estrange. 



138 THE SKETCH BOOK 

story of his real loves and fortunes. It is not often 
that sovereigns write poetry, or that poets deal in fact. 
It is gratifying to the pride of a common man to find 
a monarch thus suing, as it were, for admission into 
his closet, and seeking to win his favor by adminis- 
tering to his pleasures. It is a proof of the honest 
equality of intellectual competition, which strips off 
all the trappings of factitious dignity, brings the candi- 
date down to a level with his fellow-men, and obliges 
him to depend on his own native powers for distinction. 
It is curious, too, to get at the history of a monarch's 
heart, and to find the simple affections of human 
nature throbbing under the ermine. But James had 
learnt to be a poet before he was a king: he was 
schooled in adversity, and reared in the company of his 
own thoughts. Monarchs have seldom time to parley 
with their hearts, or to meditate their minds into po- 
etry ; and had James been brought up amidst the ad- 
ulation and gayety of a court, we should never, in all 
probability, have had such a poem as the Quair. 

I have been particularly interested by those parts of 
the poem which breathe his immediate thoughts con- 
cerning his situation, or which are connected with the 
apartment in the tower. They have thus a personal 
and local charm, and are given with such circumstantial 
truth, as to make the reader present with the captive 
in his prison, and the companion of his meditations. 

Such is the account which he gives of his weariness 
of spirit, and of the incident which first suggested the 
idea of writing the poem. It was the still midwatch 



1 



A ROYAL POET 139 

of a clear moonlight night; the stars, he says, were 
twinkling as fire in the high vault of heaven; and 
" Cynthia rinsing her golden locks in Aquarius. " He 
lay in bed wakeful and restless, and took a book to 
beguile the tedious hours. The book he chose was 
Boetius' Consolations of Philosophy, ^ sl work popular 
among the writers of that day, and which had been 
translated by his great prototype Chaucer. ^ From the 
high eulogium in which he indulges, it is evident this 
was one of his favorite volumes while in prison: and 
indeed it is an admirable text-book for meditation 
under adversity. It is the legacy of a noble and en- 
during spirit, purified by sorrow and suffering, be- 
queathing to its successors in calamity the maxims of 
sweet morality and the trains of eloquent but simple 
reasoning, by which it was enabled to bear up against 
the various ills of life. It is a talisman, which the 
unfortunate raay treasure up in his bosom, or, like the 
good King James, lay upon his nightly pillow. 

After closing the volume, he turns its contents over 
in his mind, and gradually falls into a fit of musing 
on the fickleness of fortune, the vicissitudes of his 
own life, and the evils that had overtaken him even 
in his tender youth. Suddenly he hears the bell ring- 
ing to matins ; but its sound, chiming in with his melan- 
choly fancies, seems to him like a voice exhorting him 
to write his story. In the spirit of poetic errantry he 
determines to comply with this intimation : he therefore 
takes pen in hand, makes with it a sign of the cross to 
implore a benediction, and sallies forth into the fairy 



140 THE SKETCH BOOK 

land of poetry. There is something extremely fanciful 
in all this, and it is interesting as furnishing a striking 
and beautiful instance of the simple manner in which 
whole trains of poetical thought are sometimes awak- 
ened, and literary enterprises suggested to the mind. 
In the course of his poem he more than once bewails 
the peculiar hardness of his fate; thus doomed to 
lonely and inactive Hfe, and shut up from the freedom 
and pleasure of the world, in which the meanest animal 
indulges unrestrained. There is a sweetness, however, 
in his very complaints; they are the lamentations of 
an amiable and social spirit at being denied the indul- 
gence of its kind and generous propensities; there is 
nothing in them harsh nor exaggerated ; they flow with 
a natural and touching pathos, and are perhaps ren- 
dered more touching by their simple brevity. They 
contrast finely with those elaborate and iterated re- 
pinings which we sometimes meet with in poetry; — • 
the effusions of morbid minds sickening under miseries 
of their own creating, and venting their bitterness 
upon an unoffending world. James speaks of his 
privations with acute sensibility, but having men- 
tioned them passes on, as if his manly mind disdained 
to brood over unavoidable calamities. When such a 
spirit breaks forth into complaint, however brief, we 
are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts 
the murmur. We sympathize with James, a romantic, 
active, and accomplished prince, cut off in the lusti- 
hood ^ of youth from all the enterprise, the noble uses, 
and vigorous delights of life; as we do with Milton, 



A ROYAL POET 141 

alive to all the beauties of nature and glories of 
art, when he breathes forth brief, but deep-toned, 
lamentations over his perpetual blindness. 

Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic arti- 
fice, we might almost have suspected that these lower- 
ings of gloomy reflection were meant as preparative to 
the brightest scene of his story; and to contrast with 
that refulgence of light and loveliness, that exhilarat- 
ing accompaniment of bird and song, and foliage and 
flower, and all the revel of the year, with which he ushers 
in the lady of his heart. It is this scene, in particular, 
which throws all the magic of romance about the old 
Castle Keep. He had risen, he says, at daybreak, accor- 
ding to custom, to escape from the dreary meditations 
of a sleepless pillow. "Bewailing in his chamber thus 
alone," despairing of all joy and remedy, ''fortired of 
thought and wobegone, " he had wandered to the win- 
dow, to indulge the captive's miserable solace of gazing 
wistfully upon the world from which he is excluded. 
The window looked forth upon a small garden which lay 
at the foot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot, 
adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected 
from the passing gaze by trees and hawthorn hedges. 

Now was there made, fast by the tower's wall, 
A garden faire, and in the corners set 

An arbour green with wandis long and small 
Railed about, and so with leaves beset 

Was all the place and hawthorn hedges knet, 
That lyf* was none, walkyng there forbye 
That might within scarce any wight espye. 
* Lyf, person. 



142 THE SKETCH BOOK 

So thick the branches and the leves grene, 
Beshaded all the alleys that there were, 

And midst of every arbour might be sene 
The sharpe, grene, swete juniper, 

Growing so fair, with branches here and there, 
That as it seemed to a lyf without. 
The boughs did spread the arbour all about. 



And on the small grene twistis* set 
The lytel swete nightingales, and sung 

So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrate 
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among, 

That all the garden and the wallis rung 

Right of their song 

It was the month of May,^ when everything was in 
bloom; and he interprets the song of the nightingale 
into the language of his enamored feeling : 

Worship, all ye that lovers be, this May, 
For of your bliss the kalends are begun. 

And sing with us, away, winter, away, 

Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun. 



As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes 
of the birds, he gradually relapses into one of those 
tender and undefinable reveries which fill the youth- 
ful bosom in this delicious season. He wonders what 
this love may be, of which he has so often read, and 



* Twistis, small boughs or twigs. 

Note. — The language of the quotations is generally modernized. 



A ROYAL POET 143 

which thus seems breathed forth in the quickening 
breath of May and melting all nature into ecstasy and 
song. If it really be so great a felicity, and if it be a 
boon thus generally dispensed to the most insignificant 
beings, why is he alone cut off from its enjoyments? 

Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be, 
That love is of such noble myght and kynde? 

Loving his folke, and such prosperitee 
Is it of him, as we in books do find: 
May he oure hertes setten* and unbynd: 

Hath he upon our hertes such maistrye? 

Or is all this but feynit fantasye? 

For giff he be of so grete excellence, 

That he of every wight hath care and charge, 

What have I giltf to him, or done offense. 
That I am thral'd, and birdis go at large? 

In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eye down- 
ward, he beholds 'Hhe fairest and the freshest young 
floure" that ever he had seen. It is the lovely Lady 
Jane, walking in the garden to enjoy the beauty of 
that ''fresh May morrowe." Breaking thus sud- 
denly upon his sight, in the moment of loneliness and 
excited susceptibility, she at once captivates the fancy 
of the romantic prince, and becomes the object of 
his wandering wishes, the sovereign of his ideal world. 
There is, in this charming scene, an evident re- 
semblance to the early part of Chaucer's Knight's 
Tale;^ where Palamon and Arcite fall in love with 

* Setten, incline. t Gilt, what injury have I done, etc. 



144 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of their 
prison. Perhaps the similarity of the actual fact to 
the incident which he had read in Chaucer may have 
induced James to dwell on it in his poem. His de- 
scription of the Lady Jane is given in the picturesque 
and minute manner of his master ; and being doubtless 
taken from the life, is a perfect portrait of a beauty of 
that day. He dwells, with the fondness of a lover, on 
every article of her apparel, from the net of pearl, 
splendent with emeralds and sapphires, that confined 
her golden hair, even to the "goodly chaine of small or- 
feverye"* about her neck, whereby there hung a ruby 
in shape of a heart, that seemed, he says, like a spark 
of fire burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of 
white tissue was looped up to enable her to walk with 
more freedom. She was accompanied by two female 
attendants, and about her sported a little hound deco- 
rated with bells ; probably the small Italian hound of 
exquisite symmetry, which was a parlor favorite and pet 
among the fashionable dames of ancient times. James 
closes his description by a burst of general eulogium: 

In her was youth, beauty, with humble port, 
' Bounty, richesse, and womanly feature; 
God better knows than my pen can report, 

Wisdom, largesse, t estate, J and cunning § sure, 
In every point so guided her measure, 

In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance. 
That nature might no more her child advance. 

* Wrought gold. f Largesse, bounty. 

X Estate, dignity. § Cunning, discretion. 



A ROYAL POET 145 

The departure of the Lady Jane from the garden puts 
an end to this transient riot of the heart. With her 
departs the amorous illusion that had shed a tem- 
porary charm over the scene of his captivity, and he 
relapses into loneliness, now rendered tenfold more 
intolerable by this passing beam of unattainable 
beauty. Through the long and weary day he repines 
at his unhappy lot, and when evening approaches, and 
Phoebus, as he beautifully expresses it, had "bade fare- 
well to every leaf and flower," he still hngers at the 
window, and, laying his head upon the cold stone, 
gives vent to a mingled flow of love and sorrow, until, 
gradually lulled by the mute melancholy of the twi- 
light hour, he lapses, "half sleeping, half swoon," 
into a vision, which occupies the remainder of the poem 
and in which is allegorically shadowed out the history 
of his passion. 

When he wakes from his trance, he rises from his 
stony pillow, and, pacing his apartment, full of dreary 
reflections, questions his spirit, whither it has been 
wandering; whether, indeed, all that has passed 
before his dreaming fancy has been conjured up by 
preceding circumstances; or whether it is a vision, 
intended to comfort and assure him in his des- 
pondency. If the latter, he prays that some token 
may be sent to confirm the promise of happier 
days, given him in his slumbers. Suddenly, a turtle 
dove, of the purest whiteness, comes flying in at 
the window, and aHghts upon his hand, bearing in 
her bill a branch of red gilhfiower, on the leaves of 



146 THE SKETCH BOOK 

which is written, in letters of gold, the following 
sentence : 

Awake! awake! I bring, lover, I bring 
The newis glad that blissful is, and sure 

Of thy comfort; now laugh, and play, and sing, 
For in the heaven decretit is thy cure. 

He receives the branch with mingled hope and 
dread; reads it with rapture: and this, he says, was the 
first token of his succeeding happiness. Whether this 
is a mere poetic fiction, or whether the Lady Jane did 
actually send him a token of her favor in this romantic 
way, remains to be determined according to the faith 
or fancy of the reader. He concludes his poem by 
intimating that the promise conveyed in the vision 
and by the flower is fulfilled, by his being restored 
to liberty, and made happy in the possession of the 
sovereign of his heart. 

Such is the poetical account given by James of his 
love adventures in Windsor Castle. ^ How much of it 
is absolute fact, and how much the embelHshment of 
fancy, it is fruitless to conjecture: let us not, however, 
reject every romantic incident as incompatible with 
real life; but let us sometimes take a poet at his word. 
I have noticed merely those parts of the poem im- 
mediately connected with the tower, and have passed 
over a large part, written in the allegorical vein, so 
much cultivated at that day. The language, of course, 
is quaint and antiquated, so that the beauty of many 
of its golden phrases will scarcely be perceived at the 



A ROYAL POET 147 

present day; but it is impossible not to be charmed 
with the genuine sentiment, the dehghtful artlessness 
and urbanity, which prevail throughout it. The de- 
scriptions of nature too, with which it is embellished, 
are given with a truth, a discrimination, and a fresh- 
ness worthy of the most cultivated periods of the art. 

As an amatory poem, it is edifying in these days of 
coarser thinking to notice the nature, refinement, and 
exquisite delicacy which pervade it; banishing every 
gross thought or immodest expression, and presenting 
female loveliness, clothed in all its chivalrous attri- 
butes of almost supernatural purity and grace. 

James flourished nearly about the time of Chaucer 
and Gower, and was evidently an admirer and studier 
of their writings. Indeed, in one of his stanzas he 
acknowledges them as his masters; and, in some parts 
of his poem, we find traces of similarity to their produc- 
tions, more especially to those of Chaucer. There 
are always, however, general features of resemblance 
in the works of contemporary authors, which are not 
so much borrowed from each other as from the times. 
Writers, like bees, toll their sweets in the wide world; 
they incorporate with their own conceptions the anec- 
dotes and thoughts current in society; and thus each 
generation has some features in common, charac- 
teristic of the age in which it lived. 

James belongs to one of the most brilliant eras of our 
literary history, and establishes the claims of his coun- 
try to a participation in its primitive honors. Whilst 
a small cluster of Enghsh writers are constantly cited 



148 THE SKETCH BOOK 

as the fathers of our verse, the name of their great 
Scottish compeer is apt to be passed over in silence; 
but he is evidently worthy of being enrolled in that 
little constellation of remote but never-failing lumi- 
naries, who shine in the highest firmament of literature 
and who, like morning stars, sang together at the 
bright dawning of British poesy. 

Such of my readers as may not be familiar with Scot- 
tish history (though the manner in which it has of 
late been woven with captivating fiction has made it a 
universal study) may be curious to learn something 
of the subsequent history of James, and the fortunes 
of his love. His passion for the Lady Jane, as it was 
the solace of his captivity, so it facilitated his release, 
it being imagined by the court that a connection with 
the blood royal of England would attach him to its 
own interests. He was ultimately restored to his 
liberty and crown, having previously espoused the 
Lady Jane, who accompanied him to Scotland, and 
made him a most tender and devoted wife. 

He found his kingdom in great confusion, the feudal 
chieftains having taken advantage of the troubles 
and irregularities of a long interregnum to strengthen 
themselves in their possessions, and place them- 
selves above the power of the laws. James sought to 
found the basis of his power in the affections of his 
people. He attached the lower orders to him by the 
reformation of abuses, the temperate and equable ad- 
ministration of justice, the encouragement of the arts 
of peace, and the promotion of everything that could 



A ROYAL POET 149 

diffuse comfort, competency, and innocent enjoyment 
through the humblest ranks of society. He mingled 
occasionally among the common people in disguise; 
visited their firesides; entered into their cares, their 
pursuits, and their amusements; informed himself of 
the mechanical arts, and how they could best be pat- 
ronized and improved ; and was thus an all-pervading 
spirit, watching with a benevolent eye over the meanest 
of his subjects. Having in this generous manner 
made himself strong in the hearts of the common 
people, he turned himself to curb the power of the 
factious nobility ; to strip them of those dangerous im- 
munities which they had usurped; to punish such as 
had been guilty of flagrant offences ; and to bring the 
whole into proper obedience to the crown. For some 
time they bore this with outward submission, but with 
secret impatience and brooding resentment. A con- 
spiracy was at length formed against his Hfe, at the 
head of which was his own uncle, Robert Stewart, 
Earl of Athol, who, being too old himself for the 
perpetration of the deed of blood, instigated his 
grandson Sir Robert Stewart, together with Sir 
Robert Graham, and others of less note, to commit 
the deed. They broke into his bedchamber at 
the Dominican Convent near Perth, where he was 
residing, and barbarously murdered him by oft- 
repeated wounds. His faithful queen, rushing to 
throw her tender body between him and the sword, 
was twice wounded in the ineffectual attempt to 
shield him from the assassin; and it was not until 



150 THE SKETCH BOOK 

she had been forcibly torn from his person that the 
murder was accompHshed. 

It was the recollection of this romantic tale of 
former times, and of the golden little poem which had 
its birthplace in this Tower, that made me visit the 
old pile with more than common interest. The suit 
of armor hanging up in the hall, richly gilt and em- 
bellished, as if to figure in the tourney, brought the 
image of the gallant and romantic prince vividly be- 
fore my imagination. I paced the deserted chambers 
where he had composed his poem; I leaned upon the 
window, and endeavored to persuade myself it was the 
very one where he had been visited by his vision; I 
looked out upon the spot where he had first seen the 
Lady Jane. It was the same genial and joyous month ; 
the birds were again vying with each other in strains 
of liquid melody; everything was bursting into vege- 
tation, and budding forth the tender promise of the 
year. Time, which delights to obliterate the sterner 
memorials of human pride, seems to have passed 
lightly over this little scene of poetry and love, and to 
have withheld his desolating hand. Several centuries 
have gone by, yet the garden still flourishes at the foot 
of the Tower. It occupies what was once the moat of 
the Keep ; and though some parts have been separated 
by dividing walls, yet others have still their arbors 
and shaded walks, as in the days of James, and the 
whole is sheltered, blooming, and retired. There is a 
charm about a spot that has been printed by the foot- 
steps of departed beauty, and consecrated by the in- 



A ROYAL POET 151 

spirations of the poet, which is heightened, rather than 
impaired, by the lapse of ages. It is, indeed, the gift 
of poetry to hallow every place in which it moves ; to 
breathe around nature an odor more exquisite than 
the perfume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more 
magical than the blush of morning. 

Others may dwell on the illustrious deeds of James 
as a warrior and legislator; but I have delighted to 
view him merely as the companion of his fellow-men, 
the benefactor of the human heart, stooping from his 
high estate to sow the sweet flowers of poetry and song 
in the paths of common life. He was the first to cul- 
tivate the vigorous and hardy plant of Scottish genius, 
which has since become so prolific of the most whole- 
some and highly-flavored fruit. He carried with him 
into the sterner regions of the north all the fertilizing 
arts of southern refinement. He did everything in 
his power to win his countrymen to the gay, the ele- 
gant, and gentle arts, which soften and refine the 
character of a people, and wreathe a grace round the 
loftiness of a proud and warlike spirit. He wrote 
many poems, which, unfortunately for the fulness of 
his fame, are now lost to the world; one, which is still 
preserved, called " Christ's Kirk of the Green, " ^ shows 
how diligently he had made himself acquainted with 
the rustic sports and pastimes which constitute such 
a source of kind and social feeling among the Scot- 
tish peasantry; and with what simple and happy 
humor he could enter into their enjoyments. He con- 
tributed greatly to improve the national music; and 



152 THE SKETCH BOOK 

traces of his tender sentiment, and elegant taste, are 
said to exist in those witching airs still piped among 
the wild mountains and lonely glens of Scotland. He 
has thus connected his image with whatever is most 
gracious and endearing in the national character; he 
has embalmed his memory in song, and floated his 
name to after ages in the rich streams of Scottish 
melody. The recollection of these things was kindling 
at my heart as I paced the silent scene of his imprison- 
ment. I have visited Vaucluse ^ with as much enthusi- 
asm as a pilgrim would visit the shrine at Loretto,^ 
but I have never felt more poetical devotion than when 
contemplating the old Tower and the little garden at 
Windsor, and musing over the romantic loves of the 
Lady Jane and the Royal Poet of Scotland. 



' THE COUNTRY CHURCH 

A gentleman ! 
What, o' the woolpack? or the sugar-chest? 
Or Hsts of velvet? which is 't, pound, or yard, 
You vend your gentry by? 

Beggar's Bush. 

There are few places more favorable to the study 
of character than an English country church. I was 
once passing a few weeks at the seat of a friend, who 
resided in the vicinity of one, the appearance of which 
particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich 
morsels of quaint antiquity which give such a pecuHar 
charm to English landscape. It stood in the midst of 
a country filled with ancient families, and contained, 
within its cold and silent aisles, the congregated dust 
of many noble generations. The interior walls were 
incrusted with monuments of every age and style. 
The light streamed through windows dimmed with 
armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in stained glass. 
In various parts of the church were tombs of knights, 
and high-born dames, of gorgeous workmanship, with 
their effigies in colored marble. On every side the 
eye was struck with some instance of aspiring mor- 
tality; some haughty memorial which human pride 
had erected over its kindred dust, in this temple of 
the most humble of all religions. 

153 



154 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The congregation was composed of the neighboring 
people of rank, who sat in pews, sumptuously lined and 
cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded prayer-books, 
and decorated with their arms upon the pew doors ; of 
the villagers and peasantry, who filled the back seats, 
and a small gallery beside the organ; and of the poor 
of the parish, who were ranged on benches in the aisles. 

The service was performed by a snuffling well-fed 
vicar, who had a snug dwelling near the church. He 
was a privileged guest at all the tables of the neigh- 
borhood, and had been the keenest fox-hunter in the 
country, until age and good living had disabled him 
from doing anything more than ride to see the hounds 
throw off, ^ and make one at the hunting dinner. 

Under the ministry of such a pastor, I found it im- 
possible to get into the train of thought suitable to 
the time and place: so, having, like many other feeble 
Christians, compromised with my conscience, by lay- 
ing the sin of my own delinquency at another person's 
threshold, I occupied myself by making observations 
on my neighbors. 

I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to 
notice the manners of its fashionable classes. I found, 
as usual, that there was the least pretension where 
there was the most acknowledged title to respect. I 
was particularly struck, for instance, with the family 
of a nobleman of high rank, consisting of several sons 
and daughters. Nothing could be more simple and 
unassuming than their appearance. They generally 
came to church in the plainest equipage, and often on 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH 155 

foot. The young ladies would stop and converse in 
the kindest manner with the peasantry, caress the 
children, and hsten to the stories of the humble cot- 
tagers. Their countenances were open and beauti- 
fully fair, with an expression of high refinement, but, 
at the same time, a frank cheerfulness, and an engaging 
affability. Their brothers were tall, and elegantly 
formed. They were dressed fashionably, but simply; 
with strict neatness and propriety, but without any 
mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor 
was easy and natural, with that lofty grace, and 
noble frankness, which bespeak freeborn souls that 
have never been checked in their growth by feelings 
of inferiority. There is a healthful hardiness about 
real dignity, that never dreads contact and commu- 
nion with others, however humble. It is only spuri- 
ous pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks 
from every touch. I was pleased to see the manner 
in which they would converse with the peasantry 
about those rural concerns and field-sports in which 
the gentlemen of this country so much delight. In 
these conversations there was neither haughtiness on 
the one part, nor servility on the other; and you 
were only reminded of the difference of rank by the 
habitual respect of the peasant. 

In contrast to these was the family of a wealthy 
citizen, who had amassed a vast fortune; and having 
purchased the estate and mansion of a ruined noble- 
man in the neighborhood, was endeavoring to assume 
all the style and dignity of an hereditary lord of the 



156 THE SKETCH BOOK 

soil. The family always came to church en prince. 
They were rolled majestically along in a carriage em- 
blazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver 
radiance from every part of the harness where a crest 
could possibly be placed. A fat coachman, in a three- 
cornered hat, richly laced, and a flaxen wig, curling 
close round his rosy face, was seated on the box, with 
a sleek Danish dog beside him. Two footmen, in 
gorgeous liveries, with huge bouquets, and gold-headed 
canes, lolled behind. The carriage rose and sunk on 
its long springs with pecuHar stateliness of motion. 
The very horses champed their bits, arched their 
necks, and glanced their eyes more proudly than com- 
mon horses; either because they had caught a little 
of the family feeling, or were reined up more tightly 
than ordinary. 

I could not but admire the style with which this 
splendid pageant was brought up to the gate of the 
churchyard. There was a vast effect produced at the 
turning of an angle of the wall ; — a great smacking of 
the whip, straining and scrambling of horses, glisten- 
ing of harness, and flashing of wheels through gravel. 
This was the moment of triumph and vainglory to the 
coachman. The horses were urged and checked until 
they were fretted into a foam. They threw out their 
feet in a prancing trot, dashing about pebbles at every 
step. The crowd of villagers, sauntering quietly to 
church, opened precipitately to the right and left, 
gaping in vacant admiration. On reaching the gate, 
the horses were pulled up with a suddenness that pro- 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH 157 

duced an immediate stop, and almost threw them on 
their haunches. 

There was an extraordinary hurry of the footman to 
alight, pull down the steps, and prepare everything 
for the descent on earth of this august family. The 
old citizen first emerged his round red face from out 
the door, looking about him with the pompous air of 
a man accustomed to rule on 'Change, and shake the 
Stock Market with a nod. His consort, a fine, fleshy, 
comfortable dame, followed him. There seemed, I 
must confess, but little pride in her composition. She 
was the picture of broad, honest, vulgar enjoyment. 
The world went well with her; and she liked the world. 
She had fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine 
children, everything was fine about her: it was noth- 
ing but driving about, and visiting and feasting. Life 
was to her a perpetual revel; it was one long Lord 
Mayor's day.^ 

Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. 
They certainly were handsome ; but had a supercilious 
air, that chilled admiration, and disposed the spectator 
to be critical. They were ultra-fashionable in dress; 
and, though no one could deny the richness of their 
decorations, yet their appropriateness might be ques- 
tioned amidst the simplicity of a country church. 
They descended loftily from the carriage, and moved 
up the line of peasantry with a step that seemed dainty 
of the soil it trod on. They cast an excursive glance 
around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the 
peasantry, until they met the eyes of the nobleman's 



158 THE SKETCH BOOK 

family, when their countenances immediately bright- 
ened into smiles, and they made the most profound 
and elegant courtesies, which were returned in a man- 
ner that showed they were but slight acquaintances. 

I must not forget the two sons of this aspiring citi- 
zen, who came to church in a dashing curricle, with 
outriders. They were arrayed in the extremity of the 
mode, with all that pedantry of dress which marks 
the man of questionable pretensions to style. They 
kept entirely by themselves, eyeing every one askance 
that came near them, as if measuring his claims to re- 
spectability; yet they were without conversation, ex- 
cept the exchange of an occasional cant phrase. They 
even moved artificially; for their bodies, in compliance 
with the caprice of the day, had been disciplined into 
the absence of all ease and freedom. Art had done 
everything to accomplish them as men of fashion, 
but nature had denied them the nameless grace. 
They were vulgarly shaped, like men formed for the 
common purposes of life, and had that air of super- 
cilious assumption which is never seen in the true 
gentleman. 

I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures 
of these two families, because I considered them speci- 
mens of what is often to be met with in this country — • 
the unpretending great, and the arrogant little. I 
have no respect for titled rank, unless it be accom- 
panied with true nobility of soul ; but I have remarked 
in all countries where artificial distinctions exist that 
the very highest classes are always the most cour- 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH 159 

teous and unassuming. Those who are well assured 
of their own standing are least apt to trespass on that 
of others : whereas nothing is so offensive as the aspir- 
ings of vulgarity, which thinks to elevate itself by 
humiliating its neighbor. 

As I have brought these familes into contrast, I 
must notice their behavior, in church. That of the 
nobleman's family was quiet, serious, and attentive. 
Not that they appeared to have any fervor of devotion, 
but rather a respect for sacred things and sacred places 
inseparable from good breeding. The others, on the 
contrary, were in a perpetual flutter and whisper; 
they betrayed a continual consciousness of finery, 
and a sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural 
congregation. 

The old gentleman was the only one really attentive 
to the service. He took the whole burden of family 
devotion upon himself, standing bolt upright, and ut- 
tering the responses with a loud voice that might be 
heard all over the church. It was evident that he was 
one of those thorough church and king men, who con- 
nect the idea of devotion and loyalty ; who consider the 
Deity, somehow or other, of the government party, 
and religion "a very excellent sort of thing, that ought 
to be countenanced and kept up." 

When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed 
more by way of example to the lower orders, to show 
them that, though so great and wealthy, he was not 
above being religious; as I have seen a turtle-fed al- 
derman swallow publicly a basin of charity soup, 



i6o THE SKETCH BOOK 

smacking his lips at every mouthful and pronouncing 
it "excellent food for the poor."^ 

When the service was at an end, I was curious to 
witness the several exits of my groups. The young 
noblemen and their sisters, as the day was fine, pre- 
ferred strolHng home across the fields, chatting with 
the country people as they went. The others departed 
as they came, in grand parade. Again were the equi- 
pages wheeled up to the gate. There was again the 
smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the 
ghttering of harness. The horses started off almost at 
a bound ; the villagers again hurried to right and left ; 
the wheels threw up a cloud of dust ; and the aspiring 
family was rapt out of sight in a whirlwind.^ 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON 

PIttle olde age, within whose silver haires 
Honour and reverence evermore have rain'd. 

Marlowe's Tamburlaine. 

Those who are in the habit of remarking such mat- 
ters, must have noticed the passive quiet of an Enghsh 
landscape on Sunday. The clacking of the mill, the 
regularly recurring stroke of the flail, the din of the 
blacksmith's hammer, the whistling of the ploughman, 
the rattling of the cart, and all other sounds of rural 
labor are suspended. The very farm dogs bark less 
frequently, being less disturbed by passing travellers. 
At such times I have almost fancied the winds sunk 
into quiet, and that the sunny landscape, with its 
fresh green tints melting into blue haze, enjoyed the 
hallowed calm. 

Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright, 
The bridal of the earth and sky. ^ 

Well was it ordained that the day of devotion should 
be a day of rest. The holy repose which reigns over 
the face of nature has its moral influence ; every rest- 
less passion is charmed down, and we feel the natural 
religion of the soul gently springing up within us. 
For my part, there are feelings that visit me, in a 
II i6i 



i62 THE SKETCH BOOK 

country church, amid the beautiful serenity of nature, 
which I experience nowhere else ; and if not a more re- 
ligious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on 
any other day of the seven. 

During my recent residence in the country, I used 
frequently to attend at the old village church. Its shad- 
owy aisles ; its mouldering monuments ; its dark oaken 
panelling, all reverend with the gloom of departed 
years, seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn medita- 
tion ; but being in a wealthy aristocratic neighborhood, : 
the glitter of fashion penetrated even into the sanctu- 
ary; and I felt myself continually thrown back upon 
the world by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms 
around me. The only being in the whole congregation 
who appeared thoroughly to feel the humble and pros- 
trate piety of a true Christian was a poor decrepit old 
woman, bending under the weight of years and infirmi- 
ties. She bore the traces of something better than 
abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were 
visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble 
in the extreme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial 
respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not 
take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone on 
the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived 
all love, all friendship, all society; and to have nothing 
left her but the hopes of heaven. When I saw her 
feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer; 
habitually conning her prayer-book, which her palsied 
hand and failing eyes would not permit her to read, but 
which she evidently knew by heart; I felt persuaded 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON 163 

that the faltering voice of that poor woman arose to 
heaven far before the responses of the clerk, the swell 
of the organ, or the chanting of the choir. 

I am fond of loitering about country churches, and 
this was so delightfully situated, that it frequently at- 
tracted me. It stood on a knoll, round which a small 
stream made a beautiful bend and then wound its 
way through a long reach of soft meadow scenery. The 
church was surrounded by yew-trees which seemed 
almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire shot 
up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows 
generally wheeling about it. I was seated there one 
still sunny morning, watching two laborers who were 
digging a grave. They had chosen one of the most re- 
mote and neglected corners of the churchyard; where, 
from the number of nameless graves around, it would 
appear that the indigent and friendless were huddled 
into the earth. I was told that the new-made grave 
was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was 
meditating on the distinctions of worldly rank, which 
extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell 
announced the approach of the funeral. They were 
the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing 
to do. A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall 
or other covering, was borne by some of the villagers. 
The sexton walked before with an air of cold indiffer- 
ence. There were no mock mourners in the trappings 
of affected woe; but there was one real mourner who 
feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged 
mother of the deceased — the poor old woman whom I 



i64 THE SKETCH BOOK 

had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was 
supported by a humble friend, who was endeavoring 
to comfort her. A few of the neighboring poor had 
joined the train, and some children of the village were 
running hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking 
mirth, and now pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity, 
on the grief of the mourner. 

As the funeral train approached the grave, the par- 
son issued from the church porch, arrayed in the sur- 
pHce, with prayer-book in hand, and attended by the 
clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity. 
The deceased had been destitute, and the survivor 
was penniless. It was shuffled through, therefore, in 
form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well-fed priest^ 
moved but a few steps from the church door ; his voice 
could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I 
hear the funeral service, that sublime and touching 
ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of 
words. 

I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on 
the ground. On it were inscribed the name and age 
of the deceased — ''George Somers, aged 26 years." 
The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at 
the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as 
if in prayer, but I could perceive by a feeble rocking of 
the body, and a convulsive motion of her lips, that she 
was gazing on the last relics of her son, with the yearn- 
ings of a mother's heart. 

Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the 
earth. There was that bustling stir which breaks 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON 165 

so harshly on the feelings of grief and affection ; direc- 
tions given in the cold tones of business; the striking 
of spades into sand and gravel; which, at the grave of 
those we love, is, of all sounds, the most withering. 
The bustle around seemed to waken the mother from a 
wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes, and 
looked about with a faint wildness. As the men ap- 
proached with cords to lower the cofhn into the grave, 
she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of grief. 
The poor woman who attended her took her by the 
arm, endeavoring to raise her from the earth, and to 
whisper something like consolation — "Nay, now — nay 
now, — don't take it so sorely to heart. "^ She could 
only shake her head and wring her hands, as one not 
to be comforted. 

As they lowered the body into the earth, the creak- 
ing of the cords seemed to agonize her; but when, on 
some accidental obstruction, there was a justling of 
the cofhn, all the tenderness of the mother burst forth ; 
as if any harm, could come to him who was far beyond 
the reach of worldly suffering. 

I could see no more — my heart swelled into my 
throat — my eyes filled with tears — I felt as if I were 
acting a barbarous part in standing by, and gazing 
idly on this scene of maternal anguish. I wandered to 
another part of the churchyard, where I remained until 
the funeral train had dispersed. 

When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quit- 
ting the grave, leaving behind her the remains of all 
that was dear to her on earth, and returning to silence 



1 66 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and destitution, my heart ached for her. What, 
thought I, are the distresses of the rich! they have 
friends to soothe — pleasures to beguile — a world to 
divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the sor- 
rows of the young ! Their growing minds soon close 
above the wound — their elastic spirits soon rise be- 
neath the pressure — their green and ductile affections 
soon twine round new objects. But the sorrows of 
the poor, who have no outward appliances to soothe — • 
the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is but 
a wintry day, and who can look for no after-growth 
of joy — the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, des- 
titute, mourning over an only son, the last solace of her 
years ; these are indeed sorrows which make us feel the 
impotency of consolation. 

It was some time before I left the churchyard. On 
my way homeward I met with the woman who had 
acted as comforter : she was just returning from accom- 
panying the mother to her lonely habitation, and I 
drew from her some particulars connected with the 
affecting scene I had witnessed. 

The parents of the deceased had resided in the vil- 
lage from childhood. They had inhabited one of the 
neatest cottages, and by various rural occupations, 
and the assistance of a small garden, had supported 
themselves creditably and comfortably, and led a 
happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who 
had grown up to be the staff and pride of their age. — 
"Oh, sir!" said the good woman, "he was such a 
comely lad, so sweet-tempered, so kind to every one 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON 167 

around him, so dutiful to his parents! It did one's 
heart good to see him of a Sunday dressed out in his 
best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, supporting his 
old mother to church — for she was always fonder of 
leaning on George's arm, than on her good man's; and, 
poor soul, she might well be proud of him, for a finer 
lad there was not in the country round. " 

Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year 
of scarcity and agricultural hardship, to enter into 
the service of one of the small craft that phed on a 
neighboring river. He had not been long in this em- 
ploy when he was entrapped by a press-gang, ' and car- 
ried off to sea. His parents received tidings of his 
seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. It 
was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was 
already infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and 
sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her 
age and feebleness, could no longer support herself, 
and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind feel- 
ing toward her throughout the village, and a certain 
respect as being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no 
one appHed for the cottage, in which she had passed 
so many happy days, she was permitted to remain in it, 
where she Hved sohtary and almost helpless. The few 
wants of nature were chiefly supplied from the scanty 
productions of her little garden, which the neighbors 
would now and then cultivate for her. It was but a 
few days before the time at which these circumstances 
were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables 
for her repast, when she heard the cottage door 



1 68 THE SKETCH BOOK 

which faced the garden suddenly opened. A stranger 
came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and 
wildly around. He was dressed in seaman's clothes 
was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air of 
one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her,- 
and hastened towards her, but his steps were faint and 
faltering ; he sank on his knees before her, and sobbed 
like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with 
a vacant and wandering eye — "Oh, my dear, dear 
mother! don't you know your son? your poor boy, 
George?" It was indeed the wreck of her once noble 
lad, who, shattered by wounds, by sickness and foreign 
imprisonment, had, at length, dragged his wasted 
limbs homeward, to repose among the scenes of his 
childhood. 

I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such 
a meeting, where joy and sorrow were so completely 
blended: still he was alive! he was come home! he 
might yet live to comfort and cherish her old age! 
Nature, however, was exhausted in him; and if any 
thing had been wanting to finish the work of fate, the 
desolation of his native cottage would have been suf- 
ficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which 
his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, 
and he never rose from it again. 

The villagers when they heard that George Somers 
had returned, crowded to see him, offering every com- 
fort and assistance that their humble means afforded. 
He was too weak, however, to talk — he could only 
look his thanks. His mother was his constant atten- 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON 169 

dant; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any- 
other hand. 

There is something in sickness that breaks down the 
pride of manhood; that softens the heart, and brings 
it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has 
languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and des- 
pondency; who that has pined on a weary bed in the 
neglect and loneliness of a foreign land; but has thought 
on the mother "that looked on his childhood," that 
smoothed his pillow, and administered to his help- 
lessness? Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the 
love of a mother to her son that transcends all other 
affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by 
selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by 
worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will 
sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she will sur- 
render every pleasure to his enjoyment ; she will glory 
in his fame, and exult in his prosperity: — and, if mis- 
fortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from 
misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she 
will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; 
and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all 
the world to him. 

Poor George Somers had known what it was to be 
in sickness, and none to soothe — lonely and in prison,^ 
and none to visit him. He could not endure his 
mother from his sight; if she moved away, his eye 
would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed, 
watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start 
from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he 



lyo THE SKETCH BOOK 

saw her bending over him ; when he would take her 
hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the 
tranquillity of a child. In this way he died. 

My first impulse on hearing this humble tale of 
affliction was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and, 
administer pecuniary assistance, and, if possible, 
comfort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good 
feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do 
everything that the case admitted: and as the pool 
know best how to console each other's sorrows, I 
did not venture to intrude. 

The next Sunday I was at the village church ; when 
to my surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering 
down the aisle to her accustomed seat on the steps of 
the altar. ' 

She had made an effort to put on something like 
mourning for her son; and nothing could be more 
touching than this struggle between pious affection and 
utter poverty: a black ribbon or so — a faded black 
handkerchief, and one or two more such humble at- 
tempts to express by outward signs that grief which 
passes show. When I looked round upon the storied 
monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble 
pomp, with which grandeur mourned magnificently 
over departed pride, and turned to this poor widow, 
bowed down by age and sorrow, at the altar of her God, 
and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious, 
though a broken heart, I felt that this living monu- 
ment of real grief was worth them all. 

I related her story to some of the wealthy members 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON 171 

of the congregation, and they were moved by it. 
They exerted themselves to render her situation more 
comfortable, and to lighten her afflictions. It was, 
however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In 
the course of a Sunday or two after, she was missed 
from her usual seat at church, and before I left the 
neighborhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, 
that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone 
to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow 
is never known, and friends are never parted. 



A SUNDAY IN LONDON* 

In a preceding paper I have spoken of an English 
Sunday in the country, and its tranquilHzing effect 
upon the landscape ; but where is its sacred influence 
more strikingly apparent than in the very heart of 
that great Babel, London? On this sacred day, the 
gigantic monster is charmed into repose. The intoler- 
able din and struggle of the week are at an end. The 
shops are shut. The fires of forges and manufactories 
are extinguished; and the sun, no longer obscured by 
murky clouds of smoke, pours down a sober, yellow 
radiance into the quiet streets. The few pedestrians 
we meet, instead of hurrying forward with anxious 
countenances, move leisurely along; their brows are 
smoothed from the wrinkles of business and care ; they 
have put on their Sunday looks, and Sunday manners, 
with their Sunday clothes, and are cleansed in mind as 
well as in person. 

And now the melodious clangor of bells from 
church towers summons their several flocks to the 
fold. Forth issues from his mansion the family of the 
decent tradesman, the small children in the advance; 
then the citizen and his comely spouse, followed by the 
grown-up daughters, with small morocco-bound prayer- 

* Part of a sketch omitted in the preceding editions. 
172 



A SUNDA Y IN LONDON 173 

books laid in the folds of their pocket-handkerchiefs. 
The housemaid looks after them from the window, ad- 
miring the finery of the family, and receiving, perhaps, 
a nod and smile from her young mistresses, at whose 
toilet she has assisted. 

Now rumbles along the carriage of some magnate 
of the city, perad venture an alderman or a sheriff; and 
now the patter of many feet announces a procession of 
charity scholars, in uniforms of antique cut, and each 
with a prayer-book under his arm. 

The ringing of bells is at an end; the rumbling of 
the carriage has ceased ; the pattering of feet is heard 
no more; the flocks are folded in ancient churches, 
cramped up in by-lanes and corners of the crowded 
city, where the vigilant beadle keeps watch, like the 
shepherd's dog, round the threshold of the sanctuary. 
For a time everything is hushed ; but soon is heard the 
dee.p, pervading sound of the organ, rolling and vi- 
brating through the empty lanes and courts; and 
the sweet chanting of the choir making them resound 
with melody and praise. Never have I been more 
sensible of the sanctifying effect of church music, than 
when I have heard it thus poured forth, like a river of 
joy, through the inmost recesses of this great metropo- 
lis, elevating it, as it were, from all the sordid pollu- 
tions of the week ; and bearing the poor world- worn 
soul on a tide of triumphant harmony to heaven. 

The morning service is at an end. The streets are 
again alive with the congregations returning to their 
homes, but soon again relapse into silence. Now 



174 THE SKETCH BOOK 

comes on the Sunday dinner, which, to the city trades- 
man, is a meal of some importance. There is more 
leisure for social enjoyment at the board. Members 
of the family can now gather together, who are sepa- 
rated by the laborious occupations of the week. A\ 
schoolboy may be permitted on that day to come toi 
the paternal home; an old friend of the family takes^ 
his accustomed Sunday seat at the board, tells oveii 
his well-known stories, and rejoices 3^oung and old! 
with his well-known jokes. 

On Sunday afternoon the city pours forth its legions 
to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the sunshine of the 
parks and rural environs. Satirists may say what 
they please about the rural enjoyments of a London 
citizen on Sunday, but to me there is something de- 
lightful in beholding the poor prisoner of the crowded 
and dusty city enabled thus to come forth once a week 
and throw himself upon the green bosom of nature. 
He is Hke a child restored to the mother's breast ; and 
they, who first spread out these noble parks and mag- 
nificent pleasure-grounds which surround this huge 
metropoHs, have done at least as much for its health 
and moraHty as if they had expended the amount of 
cost in hospitals, prisons, and penitentiaries. 



1 



THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP 

A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH 

A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good 
fellows. I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his great- 
great-grandfather should say, that it was an old proverb when his 
great-grandfather was a child, that "it was a good wind that 
blew a man to the wine." 

Mother Bombie. 

It is a pious custom, in some Catholic countries, to 
honor the memory of saints by votive lights burnt be- 
fore their pictures. The popularity of a saint, there- 
fore, may be known by the number of these offerings. 
One, perhaps, is left to moulder in the darkness of 
his little chapel ; another may have a solitary lamp to 
throw its blinking rays athwart his effigy; while the 
whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine of 
some beatified father of renown. The wealthy dev- 
otee brings his huge luminary of wax ; the eager zealot 
his seven-branched candlestick, and even the mendi- 
cant pilgrim is by no means satisfied that sufficient 
light is thrown upon the deceased, unless he hangs up 
his Httle lamp of smoking oil. The consequence is, 
that in the eagerness to enlighten, they are often apt 
to obscure; and I have occasionally seen an unlucky 
saint almost smoked out of countenance by the offi- 
ciousness of his followers. 

175 



176 THE SKETCH BOOK 

In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shake- 
speare. Every writer considers it his bounden duty to 
light up some portion of his character or works, and 
to rescue some merit from oblivion. The commenta- 
tor, opulent in words, produces vast tomes of disserta- 
tions; the common herd of editors send up mists of 
obscurity from their notes at the bottom of each page ; 
and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rushlight 
of eulogy or research, to swell the cloud of incense and 
of smoke. 

As I honor all established usages of my brethren of 
the quill, I thought it but proper to contribute my mite 
of homage to the memory of the illustrious bard. I 
was for some time, however, sorely puzzled in what 
way I should discharge this duty. I found myself 
anticipated in every attempt at a new reading; every 
doubtful line had been explained a dozen different 
ways, and perplexed beyond the reach of elucidation; 
and as to fine passages, they had all been amply 
praised by previous admirers; nay, so completely had 
the bard, of late, been overlarded with panegyric by a 
great German critic, that it was difficult now to find 
even a fault that had not been argued into a beauty. 

In this perplexity, I was one morning turning over 
his pages, when I casually opened upon the comic 
scenes of Henry IV., and was, in a moment, completely 
lost in the madcap revelry of the Boar's Head Tavern. 
So vividly and naturally are these scenes of humor de- 
picted, and with such force and consistency are the 
characters sustained, that they become mingled up in 



THE BOARS HEAD TAVERN, EAST CHEAP 177 

the mind with the facts and personages of real life. 
To few readers does it occur that these are all ideal 
creations of a poet's brain, and that, in sober truth, no 
such knot of merry roysters ever livened the dull 
neighborhood of Eastcheap. 

For my part I love to give myself up to the illusions 
of poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed is just 
as valuable to me as a hero of history that existed a 
thousand years since: and, if I may be excused such an 
insensibility to the common ties of human nature, I 
would not give up fat Jack for half the great men of 
ancient chronicle. What have the heroes of yore done 
for me, or men like me? They have conquered coun- 
tries of which I do not enjoy an acre; or they have 
gained laurels of which I do not inherit a leaf; or they 
have furnished examples of hair-brained prowess, 
which I have neither the opportunity nor the inch- 
nation to follow. But, old Jack Falstaff !— kind Jack 
Falstaff!— sweet Jack Falstaff!— has enlarged the 
boundaries of human enjoyment: he has added vast 
regions of wit and good humor, in which the poorest 
man may revel; and has bequeathed a never-faihng 
inheritance of jolly laughter, to make mankind merrier 
and better to the latest posterity. 

A thought suddenly struck me: "I will make a pil- 
grimage to Eastcheap," said I, closing the book, "and 
see if the old Boar's Head Tavern^ still exists. Who 
knows but I may hght upon some legendary traces 
of Dame Quickly 'and her guests; at any rate, there will 
be a kindred pleasure, in treading the halls once vocal 



178 THE SKETCH BOOK 

with their mirth, to that the toper enjoys in smelling 
to the empty cask once filled with generous wine. " 

The resolution was no sooner formed than put in 
execution. I forbear to treat of the various adven- 
tures and wonders I encountered in my travels ; of the 
haunted regions of Cock Lane^; of the faded glories of 
Little Britain,^ and the parts adjacent; what perils I 
ran in Cateaton-street and old Jewry ^ ; of the renowned 
Guildhall and its two stunted giants,"* the pride and 
wonder of the city, and the terror of all unlucky ur- 
chins; and how I visited London Stone, and struck 
my staff upon it, in imitation of that arch rebel. Jack 
Cade. 5 

Let it suffice to say, that I at length arrived in merry 
E ast cheap, ^ that ancient region of wit and wassail, 
where the very names of the streets relished of good 
cheer, as Pudding Lane bears testimony even at the 
present day. For Eastcheap, says old Stowe, "was 
always famous for its convivial doings. The cookes 
cried hot ribbes of beef roasted, pies well baked, and 
other victuals: there was clattering of pewter pots, 
harpe, pipe, and sawtrie. " Alas! how sadly is the 
scene changed since the roaring days of Falstaff and 
old Stowe! The madcap royster has given place to 
the plodding tradesman ; the clattering of pots and the 
sound of "harpe and sawtrie," to the din of carts and 
the accursed dinging of the dustman's bell; and no 
song is heard, save, haply, the strain of some siren 
from Billingsgate, chanting the eulogy of deceased 
mackerel. 



THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP 179 

I sought, in vain, for the ancient abode of Dame 
Quickly. The only rehc of it is a boar's head, carved 
in relief in stone, which formerly served as the sign, 
but at present is built into the parting line of two 
houses, which stand on the site of the renowned old 
tavern. 

For the history of this little abode of good fellowship, 
I was referred to a tallow-chandler's widow, opposite, 
who had been bom and brought up on the spot, and 
was looked up to as the indisputable chronicler of the 
neighborhood. I found her seated in a little back par- 
lor, the window of which looked out upon a yard about 
eight feet square, laid out as a flower garden; while a 
glass door opposite afforded a distant peep of the street, 
through a vista of soap and tallow candles: the two 
views, which comprised, in all probability, her pros- 
pects in life, and the little world in which she had lived, 
and moved, and had her being for the better part of a 
century. 

To be versed in the history of Eastcheap, great and 
little, from London Stone ^ even unto the Monument,^ 
was doubtless, in her opinion, to be acquainted with 
the history of the universe. Yet, with all this, she pos- 
sessed the simplicity of true wisdom, and that liberal 
communicative disposition, which I have generally 
remarked in intelligent old ladies, knowing in the 
concerns of their neighborhood. 

Her information, however, did not extend far back 
into antiquity. She could throw no hght upon the 
history of the Boar's Head, from the time that Dame 



i8o THE SKETCH BOOK 

Quickly espoused the valiant Pistol,^ until the great 
fire of London, when it was unfortunately burnt down. 
It was soon rebuilt, and continued to flourish under the 
old name and sign, until a dying landlord, struck with 
remorse for double scores, bad measures, and other 
iniquities, which are incident to the sinful race of publi- 
cans, endeavored to make his peace with heaven, by 
bequeathing the tavern to St. Michael's Church, 
Crooked Lane, towards the supporting of a chaplain. 
For some time the vestry meetings were regularly 
held there; but it was observed that the old Boar never 
held up his head under church government. He grad- 
ually declined, and finally gave his last gasp about 
thirty years since. The tavern was then turned into 
shops ; but she informed me that a picture of it was still 
preserved in St. Michael's Church, which stood just 
in the rear. To get a sight of this picture was now 
my determination; so, having informed myself of the 
abode of the sexton, I took my leave of the venerable 
chronicler of Eastcheap, my visit having doubtless 
raised greatly her opinion of her legendary lore, and 
furnished an important incident in the history of her 
life. 

It cost me some difficulty, and much curious inquiry, 
to ferret out the humbler hanger-on to the church. I 
had to explore Crooked Lane, and diverse little alleys, 
and elbows, and dark passages, with which this old 
city is perforated, like an ancient cheese, or a worm- 
eaten chest of drawers. At length I traced him to a 
corner of a small court surrounded by lofty houses, 



THE BOARS HEAD TA VERN, EASTCHEAP i8i 

where the inhabitants enjoy about as much of the face 
of heaven as a community of frogs at the bottom of a 
well. 

The sexton was a meek, acquiescing little man, of a 
bowing, lowly habit; yet he had a pleasant twinkling 
in his eye, and, if encouraged, would now and then haz- 
ard a small pleasantry ; such as a man of his low estate 
might venture to make in the company of high church- 
wardens, and other mighty men of the earth. I found 
him in company with the deputy organist, seated apart, 
like Milton's angels, discoursing, no doubt, on high 
doctrinal points, and settling the affairs of the church 
over a friendly pot of ale — for the lower classes of 
English seldom deliberate on any weighty matter 
without the assistance of a cool tankard to clear their 
understandings. I arrived at the moment when they 
had finished their ale and their argument, and were 
about to repair to the church to put it in order; 
so, having made known my wishes, I received their 
gracious permiission to accompany them. 

The church of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, standing 
a short distance from Billingsgate, ^ is enriched with the 
tombs of many fishmongers of renown; and as every 
profession has its galaxy of glory, and its constellation 
of great men, I presume the monument of a mighty 
fishmonger of the olden time is regarded with as much 
reverence by succeeding generations of the craft, as 
poets feel on comtemplating the tomb of Virgil, or 
soldiers the monument of a Marlborough or Turenne. 

I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of 



i82 THE SKETCH BOOK 

illustrious men, to observe that St. Michael's, Crooked 
Lane, contains also the ashes of that doughty cham- 
pion, WilHam Walworth, knight, who so manfully 
clove down the sturdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smithfield; 
a hero worthy of honorable blazon , as almost the only 
Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of arms: — the 
sovereigns of Cockney^ being generally renowned as 
the most pacific of all potentates.* 

* The following was the ancient inscription on the monument 
of this worthy; which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great con- 
flagration. 

Hereunder lyth a man of Fame, 
William Walworth callyd by name; 
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here. 
And twise Lord Maior, as in books appere; 
Who, with courage stout and manly myght, 
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's sight. 
For which act done, and trew entent, 
The Kyng made him knyght incontinent; 
And gave him armes, as here you see, 
To declare his fact and chivaldrie. 
I He left this lyff the yere of our God 
Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd. 

An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the 
venerable Stowe. "Whereas, " saith he, " it hath been far spread 
abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully 
by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was 
named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to recon- 
cile this rash-conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in an- 
cient and good records. The principal leaders, or captains, of 
the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first man; the second was 

John, or Jack, Straw," etc., etc. 

Stowe's London. 



THE BOARS HEAD TA VERN, EASTCHEAP 183 

Adjoining the church, in a small cemetery, immedi- 
ately under the back window of what was once the 
Boar's Head, stands the tombstone of Robert Preston, 
whilom drawer at the tavern. It is now nearly a 
century since this trusty drawer of good liquor closed 
his bustling career, and was thus quietly deposited 
within call of his customers. As I was clearing away 
the weeds from his epitaph, the little sexton drew me 
on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in 
a low voice, that once upon a time, on a dark wintry 
night, when the wind was unruly, howling, and whis- 
tling, banging about doors and windows, and twirling 
weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out 
of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly 
in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston, which 
happened to be airing itself in the churchyard, was 
attracted by the well-known call of "waiter" from 
the Boar's Head, and made its sudden appearance 
in the midst of a roaring club, just as the parish clerk 
was singing a stave from the "mirre garland of Captain 
Death"; to the discomfiture of sundry train-band cap- 
tains, and the conversion of an infidel attorney, who 
became a zealous Christian on the spot, and was never 
known to twist the truth afterwards, except in the 
way of business. 

I beg it may be remembered that I do not pledge 
myself for the authenticity of this anecdote; though 
it is well known that the churchyards and by-corners 
of this old metropolis are very much infested with 
perturbed spirits; and every one must have heard of 



1 84 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the Cock Lane ghost, and the apparition that guards 
the regaHa in the Tower, which has frightened so many- 
bold sentinels almost out of their wits. 

Be all this as it may, this Robert Preston seems to ' 
have been a worthy successor to the nimble-tongued 
Francis, who attended upon the revels of Prince Hal; 
to have been equally prompt with his "anon, anon, 
sir"; and to have transcended his predecessor in 
honesty; for Falstaff, the veracity of whose taste no 
man will venture to impeach, flatly accuses Francis of; 
putting lime in his sack; whereas honest Preston's 
epitaph lauds him for the sobriety of his conduct, the 
soundness of his wine, and the fairness of his measure.* 
The worthy dignitaries of the church, however, did 
not appear much captivated by the sober virtues of the 
tapster; the deputy organist, who had a moist look out 
of the eye, made some shrewd remark on the abstemi- 

* As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe 
it for the admonition of delinquent tapsters. It is, no doubt, the 
production of some choice spirit, who once frequented the Boar's 
Head. 

Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise, 
Produced one sober son, and here he lies. 
Though rear'd among full hogsheads, he defy'd 
The charms of wine, and every one beside. 
O reader, if to justice thou'rt inclined, 
Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind. 
He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots. 
Had sundry virtues that excused his faults. 
You that on Bacchus have the like dependence, 
Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance. 



THE BOARS HEAD TA VERN,EASTCHEAP 185 

ousness of a man brought up among full hogsheads; 
and the little sexton corroborated his opinion by a 
significant wink, and a dubious shake of the head. 

Thus far my researches, though they threw much 
light on the history of tapsters, fishmongers, and Lord 
Mayors, yet disappointed me in the great object of my 
quest, the picture of the Boar's Head Tavern. No 
such painting was to be found in the church of St. 
Michael. "Marry and amen!" said I, "here endeth 
my research!" So I was giving the matter up, with 
the air of a baffled antiquary, when my friend the 
sexton, perceiving me to be curious in everything 
relative to the old tavern, offered to show me the 
choice vessels of the vestry, which had been handed 
down from remote times, when the parish meetings 
were held at the Boar's Head. These were deposited 
in the parish club-room, which had been transferred, 
on the decline of the ancient estabHshment, to a 
tavern in the neighborhood. 

A few steps brought us to the house, which stands 
No. 12 Miles Lane, bearing the title of The Mason's 
Arms, and is kept by Master Edward Honeyball, the 
"bully-rock" of the establishment. It is one of those 
little taverns which abound in the heart of the city, 
and form the centre of gossip and intelligence of the 
neighborhood. We entered the bar-room, which was 
narrow and darkling; for in these close lanes but few 
rays of reflected light are enabled to struggle down to 
the inhabitants, whose broad day is at best but a 
tolerable twilight. The room was partitioned into 



1 86 THE SKETCH BOOK 



boxes, each containing a table spread with a clean i 
white cloth, ready for dinner. This showed that thes 
guests were of the good old stamp, and divided their 
day equally, for it was but just one o'clock. At the 3 
lower end of the room was a clear coal fire, before 3 
which a breast of lamb was roasting. A row of bright^ 
brass candlesticks and pewter mugs glistened along the 
mantelpiece, and an old-fashioned clock ticked in one 
corner. There was something primitive in this medley 
of kitchen, parlor, and hall, that carried me back to 
earlier times, and pleased me. The place, indeed, was ) 
humble, but every thing had that look of order and ! 
neatness, which bespeaks the superintendence of al 
notable English housewife. A group of amphibious- 
looking beings, who might be either fishermen or 
sailors, were regaling themselves in one of the boxes. 
As I was a visitor of rather higher pretensions, I was 
ushered into a little misshapen backroom, having at 
least nine comers. It was lighted by a skylight, 
furnished with antiquated leathern chairs, and 
ornamented with the portrait of a fat pig. It was evi- 
dently appropriated to particular customers, and I 
found a shabby gentleman, in a red nose and oil-cloth 
hat, seated in one corner, meditating on a half-empty 
pot of porter. 

The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and 
with an air of profound importance imparted to her my 
errand. Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bus- 
tling little woman, and no bad substitute for that 
paragon of hostesses. Dame Quickly. She seemed 



The boars head ta vern,eastcheap 187 

delighted with an opportunity to oblige; and hurrying 
up-stairs to the archives of her house, where the 
precious vessels of the parish club were deposited, she 
returned, smiling and courtesying, with them in her 
hands. 

The first she presented me was a japanned iron 
tobacco-box, of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, 
the vestry had smoked at their stated meetings, since 
time immemorial; and which was never suffered to 
be profaned by vulgar hands or used on common 
occasions. I received it with becoming reverence; 
but what was my dehght, at beholding on its cover the 
identical painting of which I was in quest ! There was 
displayed the outside of the Boar's Head Tavern, and 
before the door was to be seen the whole convivial 
group, at table, in full revel; pictured with that 
wonderful fidelity and force, with which the portraits 
of renowned generals and commodores are illustrated 
on tobacco-boxes, for the benefit of posterity. Lest, 
however, there should be any mistake, the cunning 
limner had warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal 
and Falstaff on the bottoms of their chairs. 

On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly 
obliterated, recording that this box was the gift of Sir 
Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the 
Boar's Head Tavern, and that it was "repaired and 
beautified by his successor, Mr. John Packard, 1767. " 
Such is a faithful description of this august and 
venerable relic; and I question whether the learned 
Scriblerius' contemplated his Roman shield, or the 



188 THE SKETCH BOOK ; 

Knights of the Round Table the long-sought san-greal, 
with more exultation. 

While I was meditating on it with enraptured gaze 
Dame Honeyball, who was highly gratified by thfc« 
mterest it excited, put in my hands a drinking cup or 
goblet, which also belonged to the vestry, and was 
descended from the old Boar's Head. It bore the 
mscription of having been the gift of Francis Wythers, 
knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding great' 
value, being considered very "antyke." This last 
opmion was strengthened by the shabby gentleman in | 
the red nose and oil-cloth hat, and whom I strongly ' 
suspected of being a lineal descendant from the vaHant 
Bardolph.^ He suddenly roused from his meditation 
on the pot of porter, and, casting a knowing look at the 
goblet, exclaimed, "Ay, ay! the head don't ache now. 
that made that there article!" j 

The great importance attached to this memento of * 
ancient revelry by modern churchwardens at first 
puzzled me; but there is nothing sharpens the appre- 
hension so much as antiquarian research; for I immedi- ' 
ately perceived that this could be no other than the 
identical "parcel-gilt goblet" on which Falstaff made 
his loving, but faithless, vow to Dame Quickly; and 
which would, of course, be treasured up with care 
among the regaHa of her domains, as a testimony of 
that solemn contract.* 

n *i "J^°V ^'^""^ ^^^^"^ *° ""^ ""P"^ ^ parcel-gilt gohlet, sitting in my 
Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wed- 
nesday, m Whitsunweek, when the prince broke thy head for 



THE BOARS HEAD TA VERN, EASTCHEAP 189 

Mine hostess, indeed, gave me a long history how the 
goblet had been handed down from generation to 
generation. She also entertained me with many 
particulars concerning the worthy vestrymen who 
have seated themselves thus quietly on the stools of the 
ancient roysters of East cheap, and, like so many 
commentators, utter clouds of smoke in honor of 
Shakespeare. These I forbear to relate, lest my 
readers should not be as curious in these matters as 
myself. Suffice it to say, the neighbors, one and all, 
about Eastcheap, beheve that Falstaff and his merry 
crew actually lived and revelled there. Nay, there 
are several legendary anecdotes concerning him still 
extant among the oldest frequenters of the Mason's 
Arms, which they give as transmitted down from their 
forefathers; and Mr. M'Kash, an Irish hair-dresser, 
whose shop stands on the site of the old Boar's Head, 
has several dry jokes of Fat Jack's, not laid down in the 
books, with which he makes his customers ready to die 
of laughter. 

I now turned to my friend the sexton to make 
some further inquiries, but I found him sunk in 
pensive meditation. His head had declined a little on 
one side; a deep sigh heaved from the very bottom of 
his stomach; and, though I could not see a tear 
trembling in his eye, yet a moisture was evidently 



likening his father to a singing man at Windsor; thou didst swear to 
me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me 
my lady, thy wife. Canst thou deny \tV'— Henry IV., Part II. 



190 THE SKETCH BOOK 



I 



stealing from a corner of his mouth. I followed thee 
direction of his eye through the door which stood open, J 
and found it fixed wistfully on the savory breast off 
lamb, roasting in dripping richness before the fire. 

I now called to mind that, in the eagerness of myv 
recondite investigation, I was keeping the poor manJi 
from his dinner. My bowels yearned with sympathy,! 
and, putting in his hand a small token of my gratitude^ 
and goodness, I departed, with a hearty benedictioni 
on him, Dame Honeyball, and the Parish Club off 
Crooked Lane; — not forgetting my shabby butt 
sententious friend, in the oil-cloth hat and copperr 
nose. 

Thus have I given a "tedious brief" account of this 
interesting research, for which, if it prove too short and . 
unsatisfactory, I can only plead my inexperience in'i 
this branch of literature, so deservedly popular at the i 
present day. I am aware that a more skilful illus- ■ 
trator of the immortal bard would have swelled the 
materials I have touched upon, to a good merchant- • 
able bulk; comprising the biographies of William i 
Walworth, Jack Straw, and Robert Preston; some 
notice of the eminent fishmongers of St. Michael's ; the 
history of Eastcheap, great and little; private anec- 
dotes of Dame Honeyball, and her pretty daughter, 
whom I have not even mentioned ; to say nothing of a 
damsel tending the breast of lamb (and whom, by the 
way, I remarked to be a comely lass, with a neat foot 
and ankle) ; — the whole enlivened by the riots of Wat 
Tyler, and illuminated by the great fire of London. 



THE BOARS HEAD TA VERN, EASTCHEAP 191 

All this I leave, as a rich mine, to be worked by 
'uture commentators; nor do I despair of seeing the 
:obacco-box, and the "parcel-gilt goblet," which I 
lave thus brought to light, the subjects of future 
engravings, and almost as fruitful of voluminous 
dissertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles, or 
:he far-famed Portland vase. ^ 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 

A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

I know that all beneath the moon decays, 
And what by mortals in this world is brought, 
In time's great period shall return to nought. 

I know that all the muse's heavenly lays, 
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, 
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought. 

That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. 

Drummond of Hawthornden. 



! 



There are certain half -dreaming moods of mind, 
in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, 
and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our 
reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In 
such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters 
of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of 
wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the 
name of reflection; when suddenly an interruption of 
madcap boys from Westminster School,^ playing at 
football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the 
place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering 
tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take 
refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeper into 
the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the 
vergers for admission to the library. He conducted 
me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture 

192 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 193 

of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage 
leading to the chapter-house and the chamber in 
which doomsday book^ is deposited. Just within the 
passage is a small door on the left. To this the 
verger applied a key; it was double locked, and 
opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We 
now ascended a dark narrow staircase, and, passing 
through a second door, entered the library. 

I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof sup- 
ported by massive joists of old Enghsh oak. It was 
soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a con- 
siderable height from the floor, and which apparently 
opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient 
picture of some reverend dignitary of the church in his 
robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall and 
in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved 
oaken cases. They consisted principally of old 
polemical writers, and were much more worn by 
time than use. In the centre of the library was 
a solitary table with two or three books on it, an 
inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by 
long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study 
and profound meditation. It was buried deep among 
the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from 
the tumult of the world. I could only hear now 
and then the shouts of the school-boys faintly 
swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell 
tolling for prayers, echoing soberly along the roofs 
of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merri- 
ment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died 



194 THE SKETCH BOOK 

away; the bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence 
reigned through the dusky hall. 

I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously 
bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated my- 
self at the table in a venerable elbow-chair. Instead 
of reading, however, I was beguiled by the solemn- 
monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place into a 
train of musing. As I looked around upon the old 
volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on 
the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their 
repose, I could not but consider the library a kind of 
literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are 
piously entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in 
dusty oblivion. 

How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, 
now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some ach- 
ing head ! how many weary days ! how many sleepless 
nights ! How have their authors buried themselves in 
the solitude of cells and cloisters ; shut themselves up 
from the face of man, and the still more blessed face 
of nature ; and devoted themselves to painful research 
and intense reflection! And all for what? to occupy 
an inch of dusty shelf — to have the title of their works 
read now and then in a future age, by some drowsy 
churchman or casual straggler like myself; and in 
another age to be lost, even to remembrance. Such 
is the amount of this boasted immortality. A 
mere temporary rumor, a local sound ; like the tone 
of that bell which has just tolled among these 
towers, filling the ear for a moment — lingering 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 195 

transiently in echo — and then passing away Hke a 
thing that was not. 

While I sat half murmuring, half meditating these 
unprofitable speculations with my head resting on 
my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon 
the quarto, until I accidentally loosened the clasps; 
when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave 
two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep 
sleep ; then a husky hem ; and at length began to talk. 
At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, being 
much troubled by a cobweb which some studious spi- 
der had woven across it; and having probably con- 
tracted a cold from long exposure to the chills and 
damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it 
became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceed- 
ingly fluent conversable little tome. ^ Its language, 
to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its 
pronunciation what, in the present day, would be 
deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I 
am able, to render it in modern parlance. 

It began with railings about the neglect of the 
world — about merit being suffered to languish in ob- 
scurity, and other such commonplace topics of literary 
repining, and complained bitterly that it had not been 
opened for more than two centuries. That the dean 
only looked now and then into the library, sometimes 
took down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few 
moments, and then returned them to their shelves. 
"What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, 
which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric, 



196 THE SKETCH BOOK , 

"what a plague do they mean by keeping several 
thousand volumes of us shut up here, and watched 
by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties in a harem, 
merely to be looked at now and then by the dean? 
Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed ; 
and I would have a rule passed that the dean should 
pay each of us a visit at least once a year; or if he is 
not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn 
loose the whole school of Westminster among us, that 
at any rate we may now and then have an airing. " 

"Softly, my worthy friend, " replied I, "you are not 
aware how much better you are off than most books 
of your generation. By being stored away in this 
ancient library, you are like the treasured remains of 
those saints and monarchs which lie enshrined in the 
adjoining chapels; while the remains of your contem- 
porary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature, 
have long since returned to dust." 

"Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and 
looking big, "I was written for all the world, not for 
the bookworms of an abbey, I was intended to cir- 
culate from hand to hand, like other great contempo- 
rary works ; but here have I been clasped up for more 
than two centuries, and might have silently fallen a 
prey to these worms that are playing the very ven- 
geance with my intestines, if you had not by chance 
given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words 
before I go to pieces. " 

"My good friend," rejoined I, "had you been left 
to the circulation of which you speak, you would long 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 197 

ere this have been no more. To judge from your physi- 
ognomy, you are now well stricken in years :^ very few 
of your contemporaries can be at present in existence; 
and those few owe their longevity to being immured 
like yourself in old libraries; which, suffer me to add, 
instead of likening to harems, you might more properly 
and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries at- 
tached to religious establishments, for the benefit of 
the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering and 
no employment, they often endure to an amazingly 
good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your contem- 
poraries as if in circulation — where do we meet with 
their works? what do we hear of Robert Groteste, of 
Lincoln? No one could have toiled harder than he for 
immortality. He is said to have written nearly two 
hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a pyramid 
of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the pyra- 
mid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments 
are scattered in various libraries, where they are 
scarcely disturbed even by the antiquarian. What 
do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, an- 
tiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet? He de- 
clined two bishoprics, that he might shut himself up 
and write for posterity; but posterity never inquires 
after his labors. What of Henry of Huntingdon, who, 
besides a learned history of England, wrote a treatise 
on the contempt of the world, which the world has re- 
venged by forgetting him? What is quoted of Joseph 
of Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical com- 
position? Of his three great heroic poems one is 



198 THE SKETCH BOOK 

lost forever, excepting a mere fragment ; the others are 
known only to a few of the curious in literature ; and 
as to his love verses and epigrams, they have entirely 
disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis, 
the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree 
of life? Of William of Malmsbury; — of Simeon of 
Durham; — of Benedict of Peterborough; — of John 
Hanvill of St. Albans;— of " 

''Prithee, friend," cried the quarto, in a testy tone, 
"how old do you think me? You are talking of au- 
thors that lived long before my time, and wrote either 
in Latin or French, so that they in a manner expatri- 
ated themselves, and deserved to be forgotten*; but, I, 
sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the 
renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I was written in my 
own native tongue, at a time when the language had 
become fixed; and indeed I was considered a model 
of pure and elegant English." 

(I should observe that these remarks were couched 
in such intolerably antiquated terms, that I have had 
infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern 
phraseology.) 

"I cry your mercy," said I, "for mistaking your 
age ; but it matters little : almost all the writers of your 

* In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great 
delyte to endite, and have many noble thinges fulfilde, but certes 
there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, of which 
speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in 
hearying of Frenchmen's Englishe. Chaucer's Testament of 
Love, 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 199 

time have likewise passed into f orgetf ulness ; and De 
Worde's publications are mere literary rarities among 
book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, 
too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, 
have been the fallacious dependence of authors of 
every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert 
of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of 
mongrel Saxon.* Even now many talk of Spenser's 
'well of pure English undefiled,' as if the language 
ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was not 
rather a mere confluence of various tongues, perpetu- 
ally subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this 
which has made English literature so extremely muta- 
ble, and the reputation built upon it so fleeting. Un- 
less thought can be committed to something more per- 
manent and unchangeable than such a medium, even 
thought must share the fate of everything else, and 
fall into decay. This should serve as a check upon 
the vanity and exultation of the most popular writer. 
He finds the language in which he has embarked his 
fame gradually altering, and subject to the dilapida- 
tions of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks 

* Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, "afterwards, also, by 
deligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and of John Gowre, in the time 
of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John 
Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an 
excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the 
type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein 
John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned and 
excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the 
same, to their great praise and immortal commendation," 



200 THE SKETCH BOOK 

% 

back and beholds the early authors of his country,', 
once the favorites of their day, supplanted by modern f 
writers. A few short ages have covered them with 
obscurity, and their merits can only be relished by the 
quaint taste of the bookworm. And such, he antici- 
pates, will be the fate of his own work, which, however 
it may be admired in its day, and held up as a model of 
purity, will in the course of years grow antiquated and 
obsolete; until it shall become almost as unintelligible 
in its native land as an Egyptian obelisk, or one of 
those Runic inscriptions said to exist in the deserts of 
Tartary. I declare," added I, with some emotion, 
"when I contemplate a modern library, filled with new 
works, in all the bravery of rich gilding and binding, I 
feel disposed to sit down and weep; like the good 
Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, pranked out in 
all the splendor of military array, and reflected that 
in one hundred years not one of them would be in 
existence!" 

"Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, "I 
see how it is ; these modern scribblers have superseded 
all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read 
nowadays but Sir Philip Sydney's ^rcaJm, Sackville's 
stately plays, and Mirror for Magistrates, or the fine- 
spun euphuisms of the 'unparalleled John Lyly.'" 

"There you are again mistaken," said I; "the 
writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they hap- 
pened to be so when you were last in circulation, have 
long since had their day. Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia^ 
the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 201 

his admirers,* and which in truth, is full of noble 
thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of lan- 
guage, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville 
has strutted into obscurity ; and even Lyly , though his 
writings were once the delight of a court, and ap- 
parently perpetuated by a proverb, is now scarcely 
known even by name. A whole crowd of authors who 
wrote and wrangled at the time have likewise gone 
down, with all their writings and their controversies. 
Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled 
over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is 
only now and then that some industrious diver after 
fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for the 
gratification of the curious. 

"For my part, " I continued, " I consider this muta- 
bility of language a wise precaution of Providence for 
the benefit of the world at large, and of authors in 
particular. To reason from analogy, we daily behold 
the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing 
up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, 
and then fading into dust, to make way for their suc- 
cessors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of 
nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing. The 

* Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his gentle witt, 
and the golden-pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto 
the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the 
breath of the muses, the honey-bee of the daintyest flowers of 
witt and arte, the pith of morale and intellectual virtues, the arme 
of Bellona in the field, the tonge of Stiada in the chamber, the 
sprite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellency in print. 
— Harvey Pierce's Supererogation. 



202 THE SKETCH BOOK 



earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation,^ 
and its surface become a tangled wilderness. In 
like manner the works of genius and learning decline, 
and make way for subsequent productions. Language 
gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings 
of authors who have flourished their allotted time; 
otherwise, the creative powers of genius would over- 
stock the world, and the mind would be completely 
bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. For 
merly there were some restraints on this excessive 
multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, 
which was a slow and laborious operation; they were 
written either on parchment, which was expensive, 
so that one work was often erased to make way for 
another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and eX' 
tremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and un- 
profitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure 
and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation 
of manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined al- 
most entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances 
it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not 
been inundated by the intellect of antiquity ; that the 
fountains of thought have not been broken up, and 
modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the 
inventions of paper and the press have put an end 
to all these restraints. They have made every one a 
writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into 
print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual 
world. The consequences are alarming. The stream 
of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented 






THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 203 

into a river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries 
since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a 
great library; but what would you say to Hbraries 
such as actually exist, containing three or four hun- 
dred thousand volumes; legions of authors at the 
same time busy; and the press going on with fear- 
fully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the 
number? Unless some unforeseen mortahty should 
break out among the progeny of the muse, now that 
she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. 
I fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be 
sufficient. Criticism may do much. It increases 
with the increase of literature, and resembles one of 
those salutary checks on population spoken of by econ- 
omists. ' All possible encouragement, therefore, should 
be*given to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I 
fear all will be in vain; let criticism do what it may, 
writers will write, printers will print, and the world 
will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It 
will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to 
learn their names. Many a man of passable informa- 
tion, at the present day, reads scarcely anything but 
reviews; and before long a man of erudition will be 
little better than a mere walking catalogue." 

" My very good sir, " said the Httle quarto, yawning 
most drearily in my face, "excuse my interrupting 
you, but I perceive you are rather given to prose. I 
would ask the fate of an author who was making some 
noise just as I left the world. His reputation, how- 
ever, was considered quite temporary. The learned 



204 THE SKETCH BOOK 



I 



shook their heads at him, for he was a poor half-edu 
cated varlet, that knew Httle of Latin, and nothing of 
Greek, and had been obhged to run the country for 
deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakespeare. I 
presume he soon sunk into obHvion." 

"On the contrary, " said I, '*it is owing to that very 
man that the Uterature of his period has experienced 
a duration beyond the ordinary term of EngHsh Hter- 
ature. There rise authors now and then, who seem 
proof against the mutabihty of language, because they 
have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles 
of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that 
we sometimes see on the banks of a stream; which, by 
their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the 
mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations 
of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being 
swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up 
many a neighboring plant, and, perhaps, worthless 
weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shake- 
speare, whom we behold defying the encroachments of 
time, retaining in modern use the language and litera- 
ture of his day, and giving duration to many an in- 
different author, merely from having flourished in his 
vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually as- 
suming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun 
by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering 
vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that 
upholds them." 

Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and 
chuckle, until at length he broke out in a plethoric 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 205 

fit of laughter that had well nigh choked him, by rea- 
son of his excessive corpulency. "Mighty well!" 
cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, "mighty 
well! and so you would persuade me that the litera- 
ture of an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond 
deer-stealer ! by a man without learning; by a poet, 
forsooth — a poet!" And here he wheezed forth 
another fit of laughter. 

I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rude- 
ness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his 
having flourished in a less poHshed age. I determined, 
nevertheless, not to give up my point. 

"Yes," resumed I, positively, "a poet; for of all 
writers he has the best chance for immortality. Others 
raay write from the head, but he writes from the heart, 
I and the heart will always understand him. He is the 
I faithful portray er of nature, ^ whose features are always 
the same and always interesting. Prose writers are 
voluminous and unwieldy; their pages are crowded 
with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded 
into tediousness. But with the true poet everything 
is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives the choicest 
thoughts in the choicest language. He illustrates 
them by everything that he sees most striking in 
nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of 
human life, such as it is passing before him. His 
writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I 
may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They 
are caskets which inclose within a small compass the 
wealth of the language — its family jewels, which are 



2o6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The ; 
setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require? 
now and then to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; 
but the brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems con- 
tinue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long 
reach of literary history. What vast valleys of dulness 
filled with monkish legends and academical contro- 
versies! what bogs of theological speculations! what 
dreary wastes of metaphysics? Here and there only 
do we behold the heaven-illuminated bards, elevated 
like beacons on their widely-separate heights, to trans- 
mit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age 
to age."* 

I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon 
the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the 
door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, 
who came to inform me that it was time to close the 
library. I sought to have a parting word with the 

* Thorow earth and waters deepe, 
The pen by skill doth passe: 
And featly nyps the worldes abuse, 

And shoes us in a glasse, 
The vertu and the vice 
Of every wight alyve; 
The honey comb that bee doth make 
Is not so sweet in hyve. 

As are the golden leves 

That drop from poet's head! 
Which doth surmount our common talke 

As farre as dross doth lead. 

Churchyard, 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 207 

quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent; the 
clasps were closed : and it looked perfectly unconscious 
of all that had passed. I have been to the library two 
or three times since, and have endeavored to draw it 
into further conversation, but in vain; and whether all 
this rambling colloquy actually took place, or whether 
it was another of those odd day-dreams to which I 
am subject, I have never to this moment been able to 
discover. 



RURAL FUNERALS 

Here 's a few flowers! but about midnight more: 
The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night; 
Are strewings fitt'st for graves — 
You were as flowers now wither'd; even so 
These herblets shall, which we upon you strow. 

Cymbeline. 

Among the beautiful and simple-hearted customs 
of rural life which still linger in some parts of Eng- 
land, are those of strewing flowers before the funerals, 
and planting them at the graves of departed friends. 
These, it is said, are the remains of some of the rites 
of the primitive church; but they are of still higher 
antiquity, having been observed among the Greeks 
and Romans, and frequently mentioned by their 
writers, and were, no doubt, the spontaneous tributes 
of unlettered affection, originating long before art had 
tasked itself to modulate sorrow into song, or story 
it on the monument. They are now only to be met 
with in the most distant and retired places of the king- 
dom, where fashion and innovation have not been able 
to throng in, and trample out all the curious and in- 
teresting traces of the olden time. 

In Glamorganshire, we are told, the bed whereon 
the corpse lies is covered with flowers, a custom alluded 
to in one of the wild and plaintive ditties of Ophelia : 

208 



RURAL FUNERALS 209 

White his shroud as the mountain snow 

Larded all with sweet flowers; 
Which be-wept to the grave did go, 

With true love showers. 

There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite ob- 
served in some of the remote villages of the south, at 
the funeral of a female who has died young and un- 
married. A chaplet of white flowers is borne before 
the corpse by a young girl nearest in age, size, and re- 
semblance, and is afterwards hung up in the church 
over the accustomed seat of the deceased. These 
chaplets are sometimes made of white paper, in imi- 
tation of flowers, and inside of them is generally a 
pair of white gloves. They are intended as emblems of 
the purity of the deceased, and the crown of glory 
which she has received in heaven. 

In some parts of the country, also, the dead are 
carried to the grave with the singing of psalms and 
hymns: a kind of triumph, "to show," says Bourne, 
"that they have finished their course with joy, and 
are become conquerors." This, I am informed, is 
observed in some of the northern counties, particularly 
in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing, though mel- 
ancholy effect, to hear, of a still evening, in some lonely 
country scene, the mournful melody of a funeral dirge 
swelling from a distance, and to see the train slowly 
moving along the landscape. 

Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round 
Thy harmlesse and unhaunted ground, 



210 THE SKETCH BOOK 

And as we sing thy dirge, we will 

The dafifodill 
And other flowers lay upon 
The altar of our love, thy stone. 

Herrick. 

There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to 
the passing funeral in these sequestered places; for 
such spectacles, occurring among the quiet abodes of 
nature, sink deep into the soul. As the mourning 
train approaches, he pauses, uncovered, to let it go 
by ; he then follows silently in the rear ; sometimes quite 
to the grave, at other times for a few hundred yards, 
and, having paid this tribute of respect to the deceased, 
turns and resumes his journey. 

The rich vein of melancholy which runs through 
the English character, and gives it some of its most 
touching and ennobling graces, is finely evidenced 
in these pathetic customs, and in the solicitude 
shown by the common people for an honored and 
a peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, whatever 
may be his lowly lot while living, is anxious that 
some little respect may be paid to his remains. Sir 
Thomas Overbury, describing the "faire and happy 
milkmaid," observes, "thus lives she, and all her 
care is, that she may die in the spring-time, to 
have store of flowers stucke upon her winding- 
sheet." The poets, too, who always breathe the 
feeling of a nation, continually advert to this fond 
solicitude about the grave. In The Maid's Tragedy 
by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful in- 



RURAL FUNERALS 211 

stance of the kind, describing the capricious melan- 
choly of a broken-hearted girl : 

When she sees a bank 
Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell 
Her servants, what a pretty place it were 
To bury lovers in; and make her maids 
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse. 

The custom of decorating graves was once universally 
prevalent : osiers were carefully bent over them to keep 
the turf uninjured, and about them were planted ever- 
greens and flowers. "We adorn their graves, " says Ev- 
elyn, in his Sylva, "with flowers and redolent plants, just 
emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in 
Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots 
being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory. "^ This 
usage has now become extremely rare in England ; but it 
may still be met with in the churchyards of retired vil- 
lages, among the Welsh mountains ; and I recollect an in- 
stance of it at the small town of Ruthen, which lies at the 
head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd. I have been told 
also by a friend, who was present at the funeral of a 
young girl in Glamorganshire, that the female attend- 
ants had their aprons full of flowers, which, as soon as 
the body was interred, they stuck about the grave. 

He noticed several graves which had been decorated 
in the same manner. As the flowers had been merely 
stuck in the ground, and not planted, they had soon 
withered, and might be seen in various states of decay; 
some drooping, others quite perished. They were 



212 THE SKETCH BOOK 

afterwards to be supplanted by holly, rosemary, and 
other evergreens ; which on some graves haa grown to 
great luxuriance, and overshadowed the tombstones. 
There was formerly a melancholy fancifulness in 
the arrangement of these rustic offerings, that had 
something in it truly poetical. The rose was some- 
times blended with the lily, to form a general emblem 
of frail mortality. "This sweet flower, " said Evelyn, 
"borne on a branch set with thorns, and accompanied 
with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive, 
umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making so 
fair a show for a time, is not yet without its thorns and 
crosses. " The nature and color of the flowers, and of 
the ribbons with which they were tied, had often a 
particular reference to the qualities or story of the 
deceased, or were expressive of the feelings of the 
mourner. In an old poem, entitled Corydoti's Doleful 
Knell a lover specifies the decorations he intends to use : 

A garland shall be framed 

By art and nature's skill, 
Of sundry-color'd flowers, 

In token of good-will. 

And sundry-color'd ribands 
I On it I will bestow; 
But chiefly blacke and yellowe 
With her to grave shall go. 

I *11 deck her tomb with flowers, 
' The rarest ever seen; 
And with my tears as showers, 
I '11 keep them fresh and green. 



RURAL FUNERALS 213 

The white rose, we are told, was planted at the grave 
of a virgin; her chaplet was tied with white ribbons, in 
token of her spotless innocence ; though sometimes black 
ribbons were intermingled, to bespeak the grief of the 
survivors. The red rose was occasionally used in re- 
membrance of such as had been remarkable for benevo- 
lence; but roses in general were appropriated to the 
graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us that the custom was 
not altogether extinct in his time, near his dwelling in the 
county of Surrey, "where the maidens yearly planted 
and decked the graves of their defunct sweethearts with 
rose-bushes." And Camden likewise remarks, in his 
Britannia: "Here is also a certain custom, observed 
time out of mind, of planting rose-trees upon the graves, 
especially by the young men and maids who have lost 
their loves ; so that this churchyard is now full of them. ' ' 

When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, 
emblems of a more gloomy character were used, such 
as the yew and cypress; and if flowers were strewn, 
they were of the most melancholy colors. Thus, in 
poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq. (published in 1651), 
is the following stanza : 

Yet strew 
Upon my dismall grave 
Such offerings as you have, 

Forsaken cypresse and sad yewe; 
For kinder flowers can take no birth 
Or growth from such unhappy earth. 

In The Maid's Tragedy, a pathetic little air is in- 
troduced, illustrative of this mode of decorating the 



214 THE SKETCH BOOK 

funerals of females who had been disappointed in love : 

Lay a garland on my hearse, 

Of the dismall yew, 
Maidens, willow branches wear, 

Say I died true. 

My love was false, but I was firm, 

From my hour of birth, 
Upon my buried body lie 

Lightly, gentle earth. 

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine 
and elevate the mind ; and we have a proof of it in the 
purity of sentiment and the unaffected elegance of 
thought which pervaded the whole of these funeral 
observances. Thus, it was an especial precaution 
that none but sweet-scented evergreens and flow- 
ers should be employed. The intention seems to 
have been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to 
beguile the mind from brooding over the disgraces 
of perishing mortality, and to associate the mem- 
ory of the deceased with the most delicate and 
beautiful objects in nature. There is a dismal process 
going on in the grave, ere dust can return to its kin- 
dred dust, which the imagination sinks from contem- 
plating ; and we seek still to think of the form we have 
loved, with those refined associations which it awak- 
ened when blooming before us in youth and beauty. 
" Lay her i' the earth," says Laertes, ^ of his virgin sister, 

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring! 



RURAL FUNERALS 215 

Herrick, also, in his Dirge of Jephtha,'^ pours forth 
a fragrant flow of poetical thought and image, which 
in a manner embalms the dead in the recollections of 
the living. 

Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice, 
And make this place all Paradise: 
May sweets grow here ! and smoke from hence 
Fat frankincense. 

Let balme and cassia send their scent 

From out thy maiden monument. 



May all shie maids at wonted hours 
Come forth to strew thy tombe with flowers! 
May virgins, when they come to mourn, 
Male-incense burn 
Upon thine altar! then return 
And leave thee sleeping in thine urn. 

I might crowd my pages with extracts from the 
older British poets who wrote when these rites were 
more prevalent, and delighted frequently to allude 
to them; but I have already quoted more than is 
necessary. I cannot however refrain from giving a 
passage from Shakespeare,^ even though it should ap- 
pear trite ; which illustrates the emblematical meaning 
often conveyed in these floral tributes ; and at the same 
time possesses that magic of language and appositeness 
of imagery for which he stands pre-eminent. 

With fairest flowers, 
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I '11 sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack 



2i6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The flower that 's like thy face, pale primrose; nor 
The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor 
The leaf of eglantine; whom not to slander, 
Outsweeten'd not thy breath. 

There is certainly something more affecting in 
these prompt and spontaneous offerings of nature, than 
in the most costly monuments of art; the hand 
strews the flower while the heart is warm, and the 
tear falls on the grave as affection is binding the osier 
round the sod ; but pathos expires under the slow labor 
of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold conceits 
of sculptured marble. 

It is greatly to be regretted that a custom so truly 
elegant and touching has disappeared from general 
use, and exists only in the most remote and insignifi- 
cant villages. But it seems as if poetical custom 
always shuns the walks of cultivated society. In pro- 
portion as people grow polite they cease to be poetical. 
They talk of poetry, but they have learnt to check its 
free impulses, to distrust its sallying emotions, and to 
supply its most affecting and picturesque usages, by 
studied form and pompous ceremonial. Few pageants 
can be more stately and frigid than an EngHsh funeral 
in town. It is made up of show and gloomy parade; 
mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning 
plumes, and hireling mourners, who make a mockery 
of grief. ' ' There is a grave digged , ' ' says Jeremy Tay- 
lor,^ "and a solemn mourning and a great talk in the 
neighborhood, and when the dales are finished, they 
shall be, and they shall be remembered no mor^," 



RURAL FUNERALS 217 

The associate in the gay and crowded city is soon for- 
gotten; the hurrying succession of new intimates and 
new pleasures effaces him from our minds, and the 
very scenes and circles in which he moved are inces- 
santly fluctuating. But funerals in the country are 
solemnly impressive. The stroke of death makes a 
wider space in the village circle, and is an awful event 
in the tranquil uniformity of rural life. The passing 
bell tolls its knell in every ear; it steals with its per- 
vading melancholy over hill and vale, and saddens all 
the landscape. 

The fixed and unchanging features of the country 
also perpetuate the memory of the friend with whom 
we once enjoyed them; who was the companion of our 
most retired walks and gave animation to every lonely 
scene. His idea is associated with every charm of 
nature; we hear his voice in the echo which he once 
delighted to awaken; his spirit haunts the grove 
which he once frequented; we think of him in the 
wild upland solitude, or amidst the pensive beauty 
of the valley. In the freshness of joyous morning, 
we remember his beaming smiles and bounding 
gayety; and when sober evening returns with its 
gathering shadows and subduing quiet, we call to 
mind many a twilight hour of gentle talk and sweet- 
souled melancholy. 

Each lonely place shall him restore, 

For him the tear be duly shed; 
Belov'd, till Hfe can charm no more; 

And mourn'd till pity's self be dead. 



2i8 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the 
deceased in the country is that the grave is more im- 
mediately in sight of the survivors. They pass it on 
their way to prayer, it meets their eyes when their 
hearts are softened by the exercises of devotion; they 
hnger about it on the Sabbath, when the mind is dis- 
engaged from worldly cares, and most disposed to 
turn aside from present pleasures and present loves, 
and to sit down among the solemn mementos of the 
past. In North Wales the peasantry kneel and pray 
over the graves of their deceased friends, for several 
Sundays after the interment ; and where the tender rite 
of strewing and planting flowers is still practised, it is 
always renewed on Easter, Whitsuntide,^ and other 
festivals, when the season brings the companion of 
former festivity more vividly to mind. It is also in- 
variably performed by the nearest relatives and 
friends ; no menials nor hirelings are employed ; and if 
a neighbor yields assistance, it would be deemed an 
insult to offer compensation. 

I have dwelt upon this beautiful rural custom, be- 
cause as it is one of the last, so is it one of the holiest 
offices of love. The grave is the ordeal of true affec- 
tion. It is there that the divine passion of the soul 
manifests its superiority to the instinctive impulse of 
mere animal attachment. The latter must be con- 
tinually refreshed and kept alive by the presence of its 
object; but the love that is seated in the soul can live 
on long remembrance. The mere inclinations of sense 
languish and decline with the charms which excited 



RURAL FUNERALS 219 

them, and turn with shuddering disgust from the dis- 
mal precincts oi the tomb; but it is thence that truly 
spiritual afifection rises, purified from every sensual 
desire, and returns, like a holy flame, to illumine and 
sanctify the heart of the survivor. 

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from 
which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound 
we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget; but 
this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this 
affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. 
Where is the mother who would willingly forget the 
infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, 
though every recollection is a pang? Where is the 
child that would willingly forget the most tender of 
parents, though to remember be but to lament ? Who, 
even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over 
whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is 
closing upon the remains of her he most loved ; when 
he feels his heart, as it were crushed in the closing 
of its portal ; would accept of consolation that must be 
bought by forgetfulness? — No, the love which survives 
the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If 
it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when 
the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the 
gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish 
and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all 
that we most loved is softened away into pensive medi- 
tation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness — 
who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? 
Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over 



220 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness 
over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it 
even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? 
No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. 
There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn 
even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! — ■ 
the grave ! — It buries every error — covers every defect 
— extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful 
bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recol- 
lections. Who can look down upon the grave even of 
an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he 
should ever have warred with the poor handful of 
earth that lies mouldering before him? 

But the grave of those we loved — what a place for 
meditation! There it is that we call up in long re- 
view the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and 
the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost un- 
heeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy — there it 
is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful 
tenderness of the parting scene. The bed of death, 
with all its stifled griefs — its noiseless attendance — its 
mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of ex- 
piring love ! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling — oh ! how 
thrilling! — pressure of the hand! The faint, faltering 
accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance 
of affection! The last fond look of the glazing eye, 
turned upon us even from the threshold of existence ! 

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate ! 
There settle the account with thy conscience for every 
past benefit unrequited — every past endearment un- 



RURAL FUNERALS 221 

regarded, of that departed being, who can never — 
never — never return to be soothed by thy contrition! 

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to 
the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affection- 
ate parent — if thou art a husband, and hast ever 
caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole hap- 
piness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kind- 
ness or thy truth — if thou art a friend, and hast ever 
wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that 
generously confided in thee — if thou art a lover, and 
hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart 
which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet ; — then 
be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious 
word, every ungentle action, will come thronging 
back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at 
thy soul — then be sure that thou wilt lie down sor- 
rowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the un- 
heard groan, and pour the unavailing tear; more deep, 
more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. 

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the 
beauties of nature about the grave; console thy 
broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet 
futile, tributes of regret; but take warning by the 
bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, 
and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in 
the discharge of thy duties to the living. 



In writing the preceding article, it was not intended 
to give a full detail of the funeral customs of the 



222 THE SKETCH BOOK 

English peasantry, but merely to furnish a few hints 
and quotations illustrative of particular rites, to be ap- 
pended, by way of note, to another paper, which has 
been withheld. The article swelled insensibly into its 
present form, and this is mentioned as an apology for 
so brief and casual a notice of these usages, after they 
have been amply and learnedly investigated in other 
works. 

I must observe, also, that I am well aware that 
this custom of adorning graves with flowers prevails 
in other countries besides England. Indeed, in some 
it is much more general, and is observed even by the 
rich and fashionable ; but it is then apt to lose its sim- 
plicity, and to degenerate into, affectation. Bright, in 
his travels in Lower Hungary, tells of monuments of 
marble, and recesses formed for retirement, with seats 
placed among bowers of greenhouse plants; and that 
the graves generally are covered with the gayest 
flowers of the season. He gives a casual picture of 
fihal piety, which I cannot but transcribe; for I trust 
it is as useful as it is delightful, to illustrate the ami- 
able virtues of the sex. "When I was at Berlin,'* 
says he, "I followed the celebrated Iffland to the 
grave. Mingled with some pomp, you might trace 
much real feeling. In the midst of the ceremony, 
my attention was attracted by a young woman, 
who stood on a mound of earth, newly covered 
with turf, which she anxiously protected from the 
feet of the passing crowd. It was the tomb of her 
parent; and the figure of this affectionate daughter 



RURAL FUNERALS 223 

presented a monument more striking than the most 
costly work of art. " 

I will barely add an instance of sepulchral dec- 
oration that I once met with among the mountains 
of Switzerland. It was at the village of Gersau, 
which stands on the borders of the Lake of Lucerne, 
at the foot of Mount Rigi. It was once the 
capital of a miniature republic, shut up between 
the Alps and the Lake, and accessible on the 
land side only by footpaths. The whole force of 
the republic did not exceed six hundred fighting 
men; and a few miles of circumference, scooped 
out as it were from the bosom of the mountains, 
comprised its territory. The village of Gersau 
seemed separated from the rest of the world, and 
retained the golden simplicity of a purer age. It 
had a small church, with a burying-ground ad- 
joining. At the heads of the graves were placed 
crosses of wood or iron. On some were affixed 
miniatures, rudely executed, but evidently at- 
tempts at likenesses of the deceased. On the 
crosses were hung • chaplets of flowers, some wither- 
ing, others fresh, as if occasionally renewed. I 
paused with interest at this scene; I felt that 
I was at the source of poetical description, for 
these were the beautiful but unaffected offerings of 
the heart which poets are fain to record. In a gayer 
and more populous place, I should have suspected 
them to have been suggested by factitious sentiment, 
derived from books ; but the good people of Gersau 



224 THE SKETCH BOOK 

knew little of books ; there was not a novel nor a love ! 
poem in the village ; and I question whether any peas- 
ant of the place dreamt, while he was twining a fresh 
chaplet for the grave of his mistress, that he was ful- 
filling one of the most fanciful rites of poetical devo- 
tion, and that he was practically a poet. 



THE INN KITCHEN 

Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn? 

Falstaff. 

During a journey that I once made through the 
Netherlands, I arrived one evening at the Pomme d'Or, 
the principal inn of a small Flemish village. It was 
after the hour of the table d'hote, so that I was obHged 
to make a solitary supper from the relics of its ampler 
board. The weather was chilly; I was seated alone 
in one end of a great gloomy dining-room, and, my 
repast being over, I had the prospect before me of a 
long dull evening, without any visible means of en- 
livening it. I summoned mine host and requested 
something to read; he brought me the whole literary 
stock of his household, a Dutch family Bible, an al- 
manac in the same language, and a number of old 
Par's newspapers. As I sat dozing over one of the 
latter, reading old and stale criticisms, my ear was 
now and then struck with bursts of laughter which 
seemed to proceed from the kitchen. Every one that 
has travelled on the continent must know how favorite 
a resort the kitchen of a country inn is to the middle 
and inferior order of travellers; particularly in that 
equivocal kind of weather, when a fire becomes agree- 
able toward evening. I threw aside the newspaper, 
IS 225 



226 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and explored my way to the kitchen, to take a peep at 
the group that appeared to be so merry. It was com- 
posed partly of travellers who had arrived some hours 
before in a diligence, and partly of the usual attendants 
and hangers-on of inns. They were seated. round a 
great burnished stove, that might have been mistaken 
for an altar, at which they were worshippijig. It was 
covered with various kitchen vessels of resplendent 
brightness; among which steamed and hissed a huge 
copper tea-kettle. A large lamp threw a strong mass 
of light upon the group, bringing out many odd fea- 
tures in strong relief. Its yellow rays partially illum- 
ined the spacious kitchen, dying duskily away into 
remote corners; except where they settled in mellow 
radiance on the broad side of a flitch of bacon, or were 
reflected back from well-scoured utensils, that gleamed 
from the midst of obscurity. A strapping Flemish 
lass, with long golden pendants in her ears, and a neck- 
lace with a golden heart suspended to it, was the pre- 
siding priestess of the temple. 

Many of the company were furnished with pipes, 
and most of them with some kind of evening potation. 
I found their mirth was occasioned by anecdotes, 
which a little swarthy Frenchman, with a dry weazen 
face and large whiskers, was giving of his love adven- 
tures ; at the end of each of which there was one of 
those bursts of honest unceremonious laughter, in 
which a man indulges in that temple of true liberty, 
an inn. 

As I had no better mode of getting through a tedious 



THE INN KITCHEN 227 

blustering evening, I took my seat near the stove, and 
listened to a variety of traveller's tales, some very ex- 
travagant, and most very dull. All of them, however, 
have faded from my treacherous memory except one, 
which I will endeavor to relate. I fear, however, it 
derived its chief zest from the manner in which it was 
told, and the peculiar air and appearance of the narra- 
tor. He was a corpulent old Swiss, who had the look 
of a veteran traveller. He was dressed in a tarnished 
green travelling-jacket, with a broad belt round his 
waist, and a pair of overalls, with buttons from the 
hips to the ankles. He was of a full, rubicund coun- 
tenance, with a double chin, aquiline nose, and a pleas- 
ant, twinkling eye. His hair was Hght, and curled 
from under an old green velvet travelling-cap stuck 
on one side of his head. He was interrupted more 
than once by the arrival of guests, or the remarks of 
his auditors ; and paused now and then to replenish his 
pipe; at which times he had generally a roguish leer, 
and a sly joke for the buxom kitchen-maid. 

I wish my readers could magine the old fellow loll- 
ing in a huge arm-chair, one arm akimbo, the other 
holding a curiously twisted tobacco pipe, formed of 
genuine ecume de mer, ' decorated with silver chain and 
silken tassel — his head cocked on one side, and the 
whimsical cut of the eye occasionally, as he related 
the following story. 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 

A TRAVELLER'S TALE * 

He that supper for is dight, 

He lyes full cold, I trow, this night! 

Yestreen to chamber I him led, 

This night Gray-Steel has made his bed. 

Sir Eger, Sir Grahame, and Sir Gray-Steel. 

On the summit of one of the heights of the Oden- 
wald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany, 
that lies not far from the confluence of the Main and 
the Rhine, there stood, many, many years since, the 
Castle of the Baron Von Landshort. It is now quite 
fallen to decay, and almost buried among beech trees 
and dark firs; above which, however, its old watch- 
tower may still be seen, struggling, like the former pos- 
sessor I have mentioned, to carry a high head, and 
look down upon the neighboring country. 

The baron was a dry branch of the great family of 
Katzenellenbogen,t and inherited the relics of the 

* The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, will 
perceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to the old 
Swiss by a little French anecdote, a circumstance said to have 
taken place at Paris. 

t /. e., Cat's-Elbow. The name of a family of those parts 
very powerful in former times. The appellation, we are told, 
was given in compliment to a peerless dame of the family, cele- 
brated for her fine arm. 

228 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 229 

property, and all the pride of his ancestors. Though 
the warlike disposition of his predecessors had much 
impaired the family possessions, yet the baron still 
endeavored to keep up some show of former state. 
The times were peaceable, and the German nobles, in 
general, had abandoned their inconvenient old castles, 
perched Hke eagles' nests among the mountains, and 
had built more convenient residences in the valleys; 
still the baron remained proudly drawn up ia his little 
fortress, cherishing, with hereditary inveteracy, all the 
old family feuds ; so that he was on ill terms with some 
of his nearest neighbors, on account of disputes that 
had happened between their great-great-grandfathers. 
The baron had but one child, a daughter; but na- 
ture, when she grants but one child, always compen- 
sates by making it a prodigy; and so it was with the 
daughter of the baron. All the nurses, gossips, and 
country cousins assured her father that she had not 
her equal for beauty in all Germany; and who should 
know better than they? She had, moreover, been 
brought up with great care under the superintendence 
of two maiden aunts, who had spent some years of their 
early life at one of the Httle German courts, and were 
skilled in all the branches of knowledge necessary to 
the education of a fine lady. Under their instructions 
she became a miracle of accomplishments. By the 
time she was eighteen, she could embroider to admira- 
tion, and had worked whole histories of the saints in 
tapestry, with such strength of expression in their 
countenances, that they looked like so many souls in 



230 THE SKETCH BOOK 



^ 



purgatory. She could read without great difficulty, 
and had spelled her way through several church 
legends, and almost all the chivalric wonders of the 
Heldenbuch.^ She had even made considerable pro- 
ficiency in writing; could sign her own name without 
missing a letter, and so legibly, that her aunts could 
read it without spectacles. She excelled in making 
Httle elegant good-for-nothing lady-like nicknacks of 
all kinds; was versed in the most abstruse dancing 
of the day; played a number of airs on the harp and 
guitar ; and knew all the tender ballads of the Minne- 
lieders^ by heart. 

Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and coquettes 
in their younger days, were admirably calculated 
to be vigilant guardians and strict censors of the 
conduct of their niece ; for there is no duenna so rigidly 
prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a superannuated 
coquette. She was rarely suffered out of their sight; 
never went beyond the domains of the castle, unless 
well attended, or rather well watched; had continual 
lectures read to her about strict decorum and im- 
plicit obedience; and, as to the men — pah! — she was 
taught to hold them at such a distance, and in such 
absolute distrust, that, unless properly authorized, 
she would not have cast a glance upon the handsomest 
cavalier in the world — no, not if he were even dying 
at her feet. 

The good effects of this system were wonderfully ap- 
parent. The young lady was a pattern of dociHty 
and correctness. While others were wasting their 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 2:^1 

sweetness^ in the glare of the world, and liable to be 
plucked and thrown aside by every hand, she was coyly 
blooming into fresh and lovely womanhood under the 
protection of those immaculate spinsters, like a rose- 
bud blushing forth among guardian thorns. Her 
aunts looked upon her with pride and exultation, and 
vaunted that though all the other young ladies in the 
world might go astray, yet, thank Heaven, nothing 
of the kind could happen to the heiress of Katzenel- 
lenbogen. 

But, however scantily the Baron Von Landshort 
might be provided with children, his household was 
by no means a small one ; for Providence had enriched 
him with abundance of poor relations.^ They, one 
and all, possessed the affectionate disposition com- 
mon to humble relatives; were wonderfully attached 
to the baron, and took every possible occasion to come 
in swarms and enliven the castle. All family festivals 
were commemorated b}^ these good people at the 
baron's expense ; and when they were filled with good 
cheer, they would declare that there was nothing on 
earth so delightful as these family meetings, these jubi- 
lees of the heart. 

The baron, though a small man, had a large soul, 
and it swelled with satisfaction at the consciousness 
of being the greatest man in the little world about him. 
He loved to tell long stories about the dark old warriors 
whose portraits looked grimly down from the walls 
around, and he found no listeners equal to those that 
fed at his expense. He was much given to the mar- 



232 THE SKETCH BOOK 



^ 



vellous, and a firm believer in all those supernatural 
tales with which every mountain and valley in Ger- 
many abounds. The faith of his guests exceeded even 
his own: they listened to every tale of wonder with 
open eyes and mouth, and never failed to be aston- 
ished, even though repeated for the hundredth time. 
Thus lived the Baron Von Landshort, the oracle of his 
table, the absolute monarch of his little territory, and 
happy, above all things, in the persuasion that he was 
the wisest man of the age. 

At the time of which my story treats, there was a 
great family gathering at the castle, on an affair of 
the utmost importance : it was to receive the destined 
bridegroom of the baron's daughter. A negotiation 
had been carried on between the father and an old 
nobleman of Bavaria, to unite the dignity of their 
houses by the marriage of their children. The prelimi- 
naries had been conducted with proper punctilio. The 
young people were betrothed without seeing each other, 
and the time was appointed for the marriage ceremony. 
The young Count Von Altenburg had been recalled 
from the army for the purpose, and was actually on 
his way to the baron's to receive his bride. Missives 
had even been received from him, from Wurtzburg, 
where he was accidentally detained, mentioning the 
day and hour when he might be expected to arrive. 

The castle was in a tumult of preparation to give 
him a suitable welcome. The fair bride had been 
decked out with uncommon care. The two aunts 
had superintended her toilet, and quarrelled the whole 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 233 

morning about every article of her dress. The yotmg 
lady had taken advantage of their contest to follow 
the bent of her own taste ; and fortunately it was a good 
one. She looked as lovely as youthful bridegroom 
could desire; and the flutter of expectation heightened 
the lustre of her charms. 

The suffusions that mantled her face and neck, the 
gentle heaving of the bosom, the eye now and then 
lost in reverie, all betrayed the soft tumult that was 
going on in her Httle heart. The aunts were continu- 
ally hovering around her; for maiden aunts are apt to 
take great interest in affairs of this nature. They 
were giving her a world of staid counsel how to deport 
herself, what to say, and in what manner to receive 
the expected lover. 

The baron was no less busied in preparations. He 
had, in truth, nothing exactly to do; but he was natur- 
ally a fuming busthng Httle man, and could not re- 
main passive when all the world was in a hurry. He 
worried from top to bottom of the castle with an air 
of infinite anxiety; he continually called the servants 
from their work to exhort them to be diligent; and 
buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly restless 
and importunate as a blue-bottle fly on a warm sum- 
mer's day. 

In the meantime the fatted calf had been killed ; the 
forests had rung with the clamor of the huntsmen ; the 
kitchen was crowded with good cheer ; the cellars had 
yielded up whole oceans oiRhein-wein, and Fernewein ; ^ 
and even the great Heidelburg tun^ had been laid 



e34 THE SKETCH BOOK 

under contribution. Everything was ready to receive 
the distinguished guest with Saus und Braus^ in the 
true spirit of German hospitaHty — but the guest de- 
layed to make his appearance . Hour rolled after hour . 
The sun, that had poured his downward rays upon the 
rich forest of the Odenwald, now just gleamed along 
the summits of the mountains. The baron mounted 
the highest tower, and strained his eyes in hope of 
catching a distant sight of the count and his attendants. 
Once he thought he beheld them ; the sound of horns 
came floating from the valley, prolonged by the moun- 
tain echoes. A number of horsemen were seen far 
below, slowly advancing along the road; but when 
they had nearly reached the foot of the mountain, they 
suddenly struck ofE in a different direction. The last 
ray of sunshine departed — the bats began to flit by in 
the twilight — the road grew dimmer and dimmer to 
the view ; and nothing appeared stirring in it but now 
and then a peasant lagging homeward from his labor. 

While the old castle at Landshort was in this state 
of perplexity, a very interesting scene was transacting 
in a different part of the Odenwald. 

The young Count Von Altenburg was tranquilly 
pursuing his route in that sober jog-trot way, in which 
a man travels toward matrimony when his friends have 
taken all the trouble and uncertainty of courtship off 
his hands, and a bride is waiting for him, as certainly 
as a dinner at the end of his journey. He had encoun- 
tered at Wurtzburg, a youthful companion in arms, 
with whom he had seen some service on the frontiers; 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 235 

Herman Von Starkenfaust, one of the stoutest hands, 
and worthiest hearts of German chivalry, who was now 
returning from the army. His father's castle was not 
far distant from the old fortress of Landshort, although 
an hereditary feud rendered the families hostile, and 
strangers to each other. 

In the warm-hearted moment of recognition, the 
young friends related all their past adventures and for- 
tunes, and the count gave the whole history of his 
intended nuptials with a young lady whom he had 
never seen, but of whose charms he had received the 
most enrapturing descriptions. 

As the route of the friends lay in the same direction, 
they agreed to perform the rest of their journey to- 
gether; and, that they might do it the more leisurely, 
set off from Wurtzburg at an early hour, the count 
having given directions for his retinue to follow and 
overtake him. 

They beguiled their wayfaring with recollections of 
their military scenes and adventures; but the count 
was apt to be a little tedious, now and then, about 
the reputed charms of his bride, and the felicity that 
awaited him. 

In this way they had entered among the mountains 
of the Odenwald, and were traversing one of its most 
lonely and thickly- wooded passes. It is well known 
that the forests of Germany have always been as much 
infested by robbers as its castles by spectres; and, at 
this time the former were particularly numerous, from 
the hordes of disbanded soldiers wandering about the 



236 THE SKETCH BOOK 

country. It will not appear extraordinary, therefore, 
that the cavaliers were attacked by a gang of these 
stragglers, in the midst of the forest. They defended 
themselves with bravery, but were nearly over- 
powered, when the count's retinue arrived to their 
assistance. At sight of them the robbers fled, but 
not until the count had received a mortal wound. 
He was slowly and carefully conveyed back to the 
city of Wurtzburg, and a friar summoned from a 
neighboring convent, who was famous for his skill in 
administering to both soul and body ; but half of his 
skill was superfluous ; the moments of the unfortunate 
count were numbered. 

With his dying breath he entreated his friend 
to repair instantly to the castle of Landshort, 
and explain the fatal cause of his not keeping his 
appointment with his bride. Though not the most 
ardent of lovers, he was one of the most punctil- 
ious of men, and appeared earnestly solicitous that 
his mission should be speedily and courteously 
executed. "Unless this is done," said he, "I shall 
not sleep quietly in my grave!" He repeated these 
last words with peculiar solemnity. A request, at a 
moment so impressive, admitted no hesitation. 
Starkenfaust endeavored to soothe him to calm- 
ness; promised faithfully to execute his wish, and 
gave him his hand in solemn pledge. The dying man 
pressed it in acknowledgment, but soon lapsed into 
delirium — raved about his bride — his engagements — ■ 
his plighted word; ordered his horse, that he might 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 2^,7 

ride to the castle of Landshort; and expired in the 
fancied act of vaulting into the saddle. 

Starkenfaust bestowed a sigh and a soldier's tear 
on the untimely fate of his comrade, and then pon- 
dered on the awkward mission he had undertaken. 
His heart was heavy, and his head perplexed; for he 
was to present himself an unbidden guest among hos- 
tile people, and to damp their festivity with tidings 
fatal to their hopes. Still there were certain whisper- 
ings of curiosity in his bosom to see this far-famed 
beauty of Katzenellenbogen, so cautiously shut up 
from the world; for he was a passionate admirer of 
the sex, and there was a dash of eccentricity and en- 
terprise in his character that made him fond of all 
singular adventure. 

Previous to his departure he made all due arrange- 
ments with the holy fraternity of the convent for the 
funeral solemnities of his friend, who was to be buried 
in the cathedral of Wurtzburg near some of his illus- 
trious relatives ; and the mourning retinue of the count 
took charge of his remains. 

It is now high time that we should return to the 
ancient family of Katzenellenbogen, who were impa- 
tient for their guest, and still more for their dinner; and 
to the worthy little baron, whom we left airing himself 
on the watch-tower. 

Night closed in, but still no guest arrived. The 
baron descended from the tower in despair. The 
banquet, which had been delayed from hour to hour, 
could no longer be postponed. The meats were al- 



238 THE SKETCH BOOK 

ready over done ; the cook in an agony ; and the whole: 
household had the look of a garrison that had beeni 
reduced by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly 
to give orders for the feast without the presence 
of the guest. All were seated at table, and just oni 
the point of commencing, when the sound of a horni 
from without the gate gave notice of the approach of ai 
stranger. Another long blast filled the old courts; 
of the castle with its echoes, and was answered by the; 
warder from the walls. The baron hastened to receive ! 
his future son-in-law. 

The drawbridge had been let down, and the stranger 
was before the gate. He was a tall, gallant cavalier 
mounted on a black steed. His countenance was pale, 
but he had a beaming, romantic eye, and an air of 
stately melancholy. The baron was a little mortified 
that he should have come in this simple, solitary style. 
His dignity for a moment was ruffled, and he felt dis- 
posed to consider it a want of proper respect for the 
important occasion, and the important family with 
which he was to be connected. He pacified himself, 
however, with the conclusion, that it must have been 
youthful impatience which had induced him thus to 
spur on sooner than his attendants. 

"I am sorry," said the stranger, ''to break in upon 
you thus unseasonably " 

Here the baron interrupted him with a world of 
compliments and greetings; for, to tell the truth, he 
prided himself upon his courtesy and eloquence. TheJ 
stranger attempted, once or twice, to stem the torrent 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 239 

of words, but in vain, so he bowed his head and suffered 
it to flow on. By the time the baron had come to a 
pause, they had reached the inner court of the castle; 
and the stranger was again about to speak, when he 
was once more interrupted by the appearance of the 
female part of the family, leading forth the shrinking 
and blushing bride. He gazed on her for a moment 
as one entranced; it seemed as if his whole soul 
beamed forth in the gaze, and rested upon that lovely 
form. One of the maiden aunts whispered something 
in her ear ; she made an effort to speak ; her moist blue 
eye was timidly raised ; gave a shy glance of inquiry on 
the stranger; and was cast again to the ground. The 
words died away; but there was a sweet smile playing 
about her lips, and a soft dimpling of the cheek that 
showed her glance had not been unsatisfactory. It 
was impossible for a girl of the fond age of eighteen, 
highly predisposed for love and matrimony, not to be 
pleased with so gallant a cavalier. 

The late hour at which the guest had arrived left 
no time for parley. The baron was peremptory, and 
deferred all particular conversation until the morning, 
and led the way to the untasted banquet. 

It was served up in the great hall of the castle. 
Around the walls hung the hard-favored portraits of 
the heroes of the house of Katzenellenbogen, and the 
trophies which they had gained in the field and in the 
chase. Hacked corselets, splintered jousting spears, 
and tattered banners were mingled wth the spoils of 
sylvan warfare; the ja^vs of the wolf and the tusks of 



240 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the boar grinned horribly among cross-bows and 
battle-axes, and a huge pair of antlers branched im- 
mediately over the head of the youthful bridegroom. 

The cavalier took but little notice of the company or 
the entertainment. He scarcely tasted the banquet, 
but seemed absorbed in admiration of his bride. He 
conversed in a low tone that could not be overheard — 
for the language of love is never loud ; but where is the 
female ear so dull that it cannot catch the softest 
whisper of the lover? There was a mingled tenderness 
and gravity in his manner, that appeared to have a 
powerful effect upon the young lady. Her color came 
and went as she listened with deep attention. Now 
and then she made some blushing reply, and when his 
eye was turned away, she would steal a sidelong glance 
at his romantic countenance and heave a gentle sigh 
of tender happiness. It was evident that the young 
couple were completely enamored. The aunts, who 
were deeply versed in the mysteries of the heart, de- 
clared that they had fallen in love with each other 
at first sight. 

The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for 
the guests were all blessed with those keen appetites 
that attend upon light purses and mountain air. The 
baron told his best and longest stories, and never had he 
told them so well, or with such great effect. If there 
was anything marvellous, his auditors were lost in aston- 
ishment; and if anything facetious, they were sure 
to laugh exactly in the right place. The baron, it is 
true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 241 

joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, however, 
by a bumper of excellent Hockheimer^; and even a dull 
joke, at one's own table, served up with jolly old wine, 
is irresistible. Many good things were said by poorer 
and keener wits, that would not bear repeating, ex- 
cept on similar occasions; many sly speeches whis- 
pered in ladies' ears, that almost convulsed them with 
suppressed laughter ; and a song or two roared out by 
a poor, but merry and broad-faced cousin of the baron, 
that absolutely made the maiden aunts hold up their 
fans. 

Amidst all this revelry, the stranger guest main- 
tained a most singular and unseasonable gravity. 
His countenance assumed a deeper cast of dejection 
as the evening advanced; and, strange as it may appear, 
even the baron's jokes seemed only to render him the 
more melancholy. At times he was lost in thought, 
and at times there was a perturbed and restless wan- 
dering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. 
His conversations with the bride became more and 
more earnest and mysterious. Lowering clouds be- 
gan to steal over the fair serenity of her brow, and tre- 
mors to run through her tender frame. 

All this could not escape the notice of the company. 
Their gayety was chilled by the unaccountable gloom 
of the bridegroom; their spirits were infected; whis- 
pers and glances were interchanged, accompanied by 
shrugs and dubious shakes of the head. The song 
and the laugh grew less and less frequent; there were 
dreary pauses in the conversation, which were at 
16 



242 THE SKETCH BOOK 

length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural 
legends. One dismal story produced another still 
more dismal, and the baron nearly frightened some 
of the ladies into hysterics with the history of 
the goblin horseman that carried away the fair 
Leonora^; a dreadful story, which has since been put 
into excellent verse, and is read and beHeved by all 
the world. 

The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound 
attention. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the 
baron, and, as the story drew to a close, began gradu- 
ally to rise from his seat, growing taller and taller, until 
in the baron's entranced eye, he seemed almost to 
tower into a giant. The moment the tale was fin- 
nished, he heaved a deep sigh, and took a solemn fare- 
well of the company. They were all amazement. 
The baron was perfectly thunder-struck. 

"What! going to leave the castle at midnight? why, 
everything was prepared for his reception ; a chamber 
was ready for him if he wished to retire. " 

The stranger shook his head mournfully and mys- 
teriously; "I must lay my head in a different cham- 
ber to-night ! " 

There was something in this reply, and the tone in 
which it was uttered, that made the baron's heart mis- 
give him; but he rallied his forces, and repeated his 
hospitable entreaties. 

The stranger shook his head silently, but positively, 
at every offer; and, waving his farewell to the company, 
stalked slowly out of the hall. The maiden aunts v/ere 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 243 

absolutely petrified— the bride hung her head, and a 
tear stole to her eye. 

The baron followed the stranger to the great court 
of the castle, where the black charger stood pawing 
the earth, and snorting with impatience. When they 
had reached the portal, whose deep archway was dimly 
lighted by a cresset, the stranger paused, and addressed 
the baron in a hollow tone of voice, which the vaulted 
roof rendered still more sepulchral. 

"Now that we are alone, " said he, " I will impart to 
you the reason of my going. I have a solemn, an 

indispensable engagement " 

''Why, " said the baron, "cannot you send some one 
in your place?" 

"It admits of no substitute— I must attend it in 

person — I must away to Wurtzburg cathedral " 

"Ay," said the baron, plucking up spirit, ''but not 
until to-morrow— to-morrow you shall take your bride 
there." 

"No! no!" replied the stranger, with tenfold solem- 
nity, ''my engagement is with no bride— the worms! 
the worms expect me! I am a dead man— I have been 
slain by robbers— my body Hes at Wurtzburg— at 
midnight I am to be buried — the grave is waiting for 
me — I must keep my appointment!" 

He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the 
drawbridge, and the clattering of his horses' hoofs 
was lost in the whistling of the night blast. 

The baron returned to the hall in the utmost con- 
sternation, and related what had passed. Two ladies 



244 THE SKETCH BOOK 

fainted outright, others sickened at the idea of having 
banqueted with a spectre. It was the opinion of 
some, that this might be the wild huntsman, famous 
in German legend. Some talked of mountain sprites, 
of wood-demons, and of other supernatural beings, 
with which the good people of Germany have been so 
grievously harassed since time immemorial. One of 
the poor relations ventured to suggest that it might be 
some sportive evasion of the young cavalier, and that 
the very gloominess of the caprice seemed to accord 
with so melancholy a personage. This, however, 
drew on him the indignation of the whole company, 
and especially of the baron, who looked upon him as 
little better than an infidel ; so that he was fain to ab- 
jure his heresy as speedily as possible, and come into 
the faith of the true believers. 

But whatever may have been the doubts enter- 
tained, they were completely put to an end by the 
arrival, next day, of regular missives, confirming the 
intelligence of the young count's murder, and his in- 
terment in Wurtzburg cathedral. 

The dismay at the castle may well be imagined. 
The baron shut himself up in his chamber. The 
guests, who had come to rejoice with him, could not 
think of abandoning him in his distress. They wan- 
dered about the courts, or collected in groups in the 
hall, shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders, 
at the troubles of so good a man ; and sat longer than 
ever at table, and ate and drank more stoutly than 
ever, by way of keeping up their spirits. But the 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 245 

situation of the widowed bride was the most pitiable. 
To have lost a husband before she had even embraced 
him — and such a husband! if the very spectre could 
be so gracious and noble, what must have been the 
living man! She filled the house with lamentations. 

On the night of the second day of her widowhood, 
she had retired to her chamber, accompanied by one of 
her aunts, who insisted on sleeping with her. The 
aunt, who was one of the best tellers of ghost stories 
in all Germany, had just been recounting one of her 
longest, and had fallen asleep in the very midst of it. 
The chamber was remote, and overlooked a small 
garden. The niece lay pensively gazing at the beams 
of the rising moon, as they trembled on the leaves of an 
aspen-tree before the lattice. The castle-clock had 
just tolled midnight, when a soft strain of music stole 
up from the garden. She rose hastily from her bed, 
and stepped Hghtly to the window. A tall figure stood 
among the shadows of the trees. As it raised its head, 
a beam of moonlight fell upon the countenance. 
Heaven and earth! she beheld the Spectre Bride- 
groom ! A loud shriek at that moment burst upon her 
ear, and her aunt, who had been awakened by the 
music, and had followed her silently to the window, 
fell into her arms. When she looked again, the 
spectre had disappeared. 

Of the two females, the aunt now required the most 
soothing, for she was perfectly beside herself with 
terror. As to the young lady, there was something, 
even in the spectre of her lover, that seemed endear- 



246 THE SKETCH BOOK 

ing. There was still the semblance of manly beauty ; 
and though the shadow of a man is but little calcu- 
lated to satisfy the affections of a love-sick girl, yet, 
where the substance is not to be had, even that is 
consoling. The aunt declared she would never sleep 
in that chamber again; the niece, for once, was re- 
fractory, and declared as strongly that she would 
sleep in no other in the castle: the consequence was, 
that she had to sleep in it alone: but she drew a 
promise from her aunt not to relate the story of the 
spectre, lest she should be denied the only melan- 
choly pleasure left her on earth — that of inhabiting 
the chamber over which the guardian shade of her 
lover kept its nightly vigils. 

How long the good old lady would have observed 
this promise is uncertain, for she dearly loved to talk 
of the marvellous, and there is a triumph in being the 
first to tell a frightful story ; it is, however, still quoted 
in the neighborhood, as a memorable instance of female 
secrecy, that she kept it to herself for a whole week; 
when she was suddenly absolved from all further re- 
straint, by intelligence, brought to the breakfast table 
one morning, that the young lady was not to be found. 
Her room was empty — the bed had not been slept in — 
the window was open, and the bird had flown ! 

The astonishment and concern with which the in- 
telligence was received, can only be imagined by those 
who have witnessed the agitation which the mishaps 
of a great man cause among his friends. Even the 
poor relations paused for a moment from the inde- 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 247 

fatigable labors of the trencher, when the aunt, who 
had at first been struck speechless, wrung her hands ^ 
and shrieked out, ''The goblin! the goblin! she's 
carried away by the goblin ! ' ' 

In a few words she related the fearful scene of the 
garden, and concluded that the spectre must have car- 
ried off his bride. Two of the domestics corroborated 
the opinion, for they had heard the clattering of a 
horse's hoofs- down the mountain about midnight, 
and had no doubt that it was the spectre on his black 
charger, bearing her away to the tomb. All present 
were struck with the direful probability ; for events of 
the kind are extremely common in Germany, as many 
well authenticated histories bear witness. 

What a lamentable situation was that of the poor 
baron! What a heart-rending dilemma for a fond 
father, and a member of the great family of Katzenel- 
lenbogen! His only daughter had either been rapt 
away to the grave, or he was to have some wood- 
demon for a son-in-law, and, perchance, a troop of gob- 
lin grandchildren. As usual, he was completely be- 
wildered and all the castle in an uproar. The men were 
ordered to take horse, and scour every road and path 
and glen of the Odenwald. The baron himself had 
just drawn on his jack-boots, girded on his sword, and 
was about to mount his steed to sally forth on the 
doubtful quest, when he was brought to a pause by a 
new apparition. A lady was seen approaching the 
castle, mounted on a palfrey, attended by a cavalier on 
horseback. She galloped up to the gate, sprang from 



248 THE SKETCH BOOK 

her horse, and falHng at the baron's feet, embraced 
his knees. It was his lost daughter, and her compan- 
ion — the Spectre Bridegroom! The baron was as- 
tounded. He looked at his daughter, then at the 
spectre, and almost doubted the evidence of his senses. 
The latter, too, was wonderfully improved in his ap- 
pearance since his visit to the world of spirits. His 
dress was splendid, and set off a noble figure of manly- 
symmetry. He was no longer pale and melancholy. 
His fine countenance was flushed with the glow of 
youth, and joy rioted in his large dark eye. 

The mystery was soon cleared up. The cavalier 
(for in truth, as you must have known all the while, 
he was no goblin) announced himself as Sir Her- 
man Von Starkenfaust. He related his adventure 
with the young count. He told how he had hastened 
to the castle to deliver the unwelcome tidings, but 
that the eloquence of the baron had interrupted him 
in every attempt to tell his tale. How the sight of 
the bride had completely captivated him, and that 
to pass a few hours near her, he had tacitly suffered 
the mistake to continue. How he had been sorely 
perplexed in what way to make a decent retreat, 
until the baron's goblin stories had suggested his ec- 
centric exit. How, fearing the feudal hostility of the 
family, he had repeated his visits by stealth — had 
haunted the garden beneath the young lady's win- 
dow — had wooed — had won — had borne away in 
triumph — and, in a word, had wedded the fair. 

Under any other circumstances the baron would 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 249 

have been inflexible, for he was tenacious of paternal 
authority, and devoutly obstinate in all family feuds ; 
but he loved his daughter; he had lamented her as 
lost ; he rejoiced to find her still alive ; and, though her 
husband was of a hostile house, yet, thank Heaven, 
he was not a goblin. There was something, it must be 
acknowledged, that did not exactly accord with his 
notions of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had 
passed upon him of his being a dead man ; but several 
old friends present, who had served in the wars, as- 
sured him that every stratagem was excusable in love, 
and that the cavalier was entitled to especial privilege, 
having lately served as a trooper. 

Matters, therefore, were happily arranged. The 
baron pardoned the young couple on the spot. The 
revels at the castle were resumed. The poor relations 
overwhelmed this new member of the family with 
loving kindness; he was so gallant, so generous — and 
so rich. The aunts, it is true, were somewhat scan- 
dalized that their system of strict seclusion and 
passive obedience should be so badly exempHfied, but 
attributed it all to their negligence in not having 
the windows grated. One of them was particularly 
mortified at having her marvellous story marred, and 
that the only spectre she had ever seen should turn out 
a counterfeit ; but the niece seemed perfectly happy at 
having found him substantial flesh and blood — and so 
the story ends. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

When I behold, with deep astonishment, 
To famous Westminster how there resorte 
Living in brasse or stoney monument. 
The princes and the worthies of all sorte; 
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie, 
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation, 
And looke upon offenselesse majesty, 
Naked of pomp or earthly domination? 
And how a play-game of a painted stone 
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites, 
Whome all the world which late they stood upon 
Could not content or quench their appetites. 
Life is a frost of cold felicitie. 
And death the thaw of all our vanitie. 

Christolero's Epigrams, by T. B. 1598. 

On one of those sober and rather melancholy days,' 
in the latter part of autumn, when the shadows of 
morning and evening almost mingle together, and 
throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed 
several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. 
There was something congenial to the season in the 
mournful magnificence of the old pile; and, as I passed 
its threshold, it seemed like stepping back into the 
regions of antiquity, and losing myself among the 
shades of former ages. 

I entered from the inner court ^ of Westminster 
School, through a long, low, vaulted passage, that had 

250 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 251 

an almost subterranean look, being dimly lighted in 
one part by circular perforations in the massive walls. 
Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the 
cloisters, with the figure of an old verger, in his black 
gown, moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming 
like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs. The 
approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic 
remains prepares the mind for its solemn contempla- 
tion. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet 
and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are 
discolored by damps, and crumbling with age; a coat 
of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the 
mural monuments, and obscured the death's heads, 
and other funereal emblems. The sharp touches of 
the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the arches ; 
the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their 
leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual 
dilapidations of time, which yet has something touch- 
ing and pleasing in its very decay. 

The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray 
into the square of the cloisters; beaming upon a 
scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an 
angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky 
splendor. From between the arcades, the eye 
glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud ; and 
beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering 
into the azure heaven. 

As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating 
this mingled picture of glory and decay, and some- 
times endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions on the 



252 THE SKETCH BOOK 

tombstones, which formed the pavement beneath my 
feet, my eye was attracted to three figures, rudely 
carved in reUef, but nearly worn away by the foot- 
steps of many generations. They were the effigies of 
three of the early abbots; the epitaphs were entirely 
effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt 
been renewed in later times. (VitaHs Abbas. 1082, and 
Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 11 14, and Laurentius. 
Abbas. 1 1 76.) I remained some httle while, musing 
over these casual relics of antiquity, thus left like 
wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale 
but that such beings had been, and had perished; 
teaching no moral but the futility of that pride which 
hopes still to exact homage in its ashes, and to Hve in 
an inscription. A httle longer, and even these faint 
records will be obliterated, and the monument will 
cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking 
down upon these grave-stones, I was roused by the 
sound of the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress 
to buttress, and echoing among the cloisters. It is 
almost startling to hear this warning of departed time 
sounding among the tombs, and telHng the lapse of the 
hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward 
towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an arched 
door opening to the interior of the abbey. On enter- 
ing here, the magnitude of the building breaks fully 
upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the 
cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered 
columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing 
from them to such an amazing height; and man 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 253 

wandering about their bases, shrunk into insignifi- 
cance in comparison with his own handiwork. The 
spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice produce a 
profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously 
and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hal- 
lowed silence of the tomb ; while every footfall whispers 
along the walls, and chatters among the sepul- 
chres, making us more sensible of the quiet we have 
interrupted. 

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses 
down upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into 
noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded 
by the congregated bones of the great men of past 
times, who have filled history with their deeds, and the 
earth with their renown. 

And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of 
human ambition,^ to see how they are crowded to- 
gether and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is 
observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, 
a little portion of earth, to those, whom, when alive, 
kingdoms could not satisfy; and how many shapes, 
and forms, and artifices, are devised to catch the 
casual notice of the passenger, and save from forget- 
fulness, for a few short years, a name which once 
aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and 
admiration. 

I passed some time in Poets' Corner, which occupies 
an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the 
abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for 
the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for 



254 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues 
erected to their memories; but the greater part have 
busts, medalHons, and sometimes mere inscriptions. 
Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I 
have always observed that the visitors to the abbey 
remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder 
feeling takes place of that cold curiosity or vague 
admiration with which they gaze on the splendid 
monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger 
about these as about the tombs of friends and compan- 
ions; for indeed there is something of companionship 
between the author and the reader. Other men are 
known to posterity only through the medium of his- 
tory, which is continually growing faint and obscure: 
but the intercourse between the author and his fellow- 
men is ever new, active, and immediate. He has 
lived for them more than for himself ; he has sacrificed 
surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the 
delights of social life, that he might the more inti- 
mately commune with distant minds and distant ages. 
Well may the world cherish his renown ; for it has been 
purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but 
by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may 
posterity be grateful to his memory ; for he has left it 
an inheritance, not of empty names and sounding 
actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of 
thought, and golden veins of language. 

From Poets' Corner I continued my stroll towards 
that part of the abbey which contains the sepulchres 
of the kings. I wandered among what once were 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 255 



chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and 
monuments of the great. At every turn I met with 
some illustrious name; or the cognizance of some 
powerful house renowned in history. As the eye 
darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches 
glimpses of quaint effigies; some kneeling in niches, 
as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, 
with hands piously pressed together; warriors in ar- 
mor, as if reposing after battle; prelates with cro- 
siers and mitres; and nobles in robes and coronets, 
lying as it were in state. In glancing over this scene, 
so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still 
and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a 
mansion of that fabled city, where every being had 
been suddenly transmuted into stone. 

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the 
effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large buckler 
was on one arm; the hands were pressed together in 
supplication upon the breast; the face was almost 
covered by the morion; the legs were crossed, in token 
of the warrior's having been engaged in the holy war. 
It was the tomb of a crusader ; of one of those military 
enthusiasts, who so strangely mingled rcHgion and 
romance, and whose exploits form the connecting Hnk 
between fact and fiction; between the history and the 
fairy tale. There is something extremely picturesque 
in the tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they 
are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. 
They comport with the antiquated chapels in which 
they are generally found; and in considering them, the 



256 THE SKETCH BOOK 

imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary,] 
associations, the romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp 
and pageantry, which poetry has spread over the wars:^ 
for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics oft 
times utterly gone by; of beings passed from recollec-- 
tion ; of customs and manners with which ours have no 
affinity. They are like objects from some strange andl 
distant land, of which we have no certain knowledge,, 
and about which all our conceptions are vague and 
visionary. There is something extremely solemn and 
awful in those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended as if 
in the sleep of death, or in the supplication of the dying 
hour. They have an effect infinitely more impressive 
on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the over- 
wrought conceits, and allegorical groups, which 
abound on modern monuments. I have been struck, 
also, with the superiority of many of the old sepul- 
chral inscriptions. There was a noble way, in former 
times, of saying things simply, and yet saying them 
proudly ; and I do not know an epitaph that breathes a 
loftier consciousness of family worth and honorable 
lineage, than one which affirms, of a noble house, that 
"all the brothers were brave, and all the sisters 
virtuous." 

In the opposite transept to Poets' Corner stands a 
monument which is among the most renowned achieve- 
ments of modern art ; but which to me appears horrible 
rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightin- 
gale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is 
represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 257 

sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is 
falHng from its fleshless frame as it launches its dart 
at its victim. She is sinking into her affrighted hus- 
band's arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, 
to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible 
truth and spirit ; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering 
yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the 
spectre. — But why should we thus seek to clothe 
death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors 
round the tomb of those we love? The grave should 
be surrounded by everything that might inspire 
tenderness and veneration for the dead ; or that might 
win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust 
and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. 

While wandering about these gloomy vaults and 
silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the 
sound of busy existence from without occasionally 
reaches the ear; — the rumbling of the passing equi- 
page; the murmur of the multitude; or perhaps the 
light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is striking with 
the deathlike repose around : and it has a strange effect 
upon the feelings, thus to hear the surges of active life 
hurrying along, and beating against the very walls of 
the sepulchre. 

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, 
and from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually 
wearing away ; the distant tread of loiterers about the 
abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued 
bell was summoning to evening prayers ; and I saw at 
a distance the choristers, in their white surplices, 



258 THE SKETCH BOOK 

crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood 
before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. 
A flight of steps lead up to it, through a deep and 
gloomy, but magnificent, arch. Great gates of brass, 
richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their 
hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of 
common mortals into this most gorgeous of sepulchres. 

On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of 
architecture, and the elaborate beauty of sculptured 
detail. The very walls are wrought into universal 
ornament, incrusted with tracery, and scooped into 
niches, crowded with the statues of saints and mar- 
tyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, 
to have been robbed of its weight and density, sus- 
pended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof 
achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy 
security of a cobweb. 

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of 
the Knights of the Bath, ^ richly carved of oak, though 
with the grotesque decorations of Gothic^ architecture. 
On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixed the helmets 
and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords; 
and above them are suspended their banners, em- 
blazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the 
splendor of gold and purple and crimson, with the 
cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this 
grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder, 
— his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a 
sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a 
superbly-wrought brazen railing. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 259 

There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence; this 
strange mixture of tombs and trophies ; these emblems 
of Hving and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos 
which show the dust and oblivion in which all must 
sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the 
mind with a deeper feeHng of loneliness, than to tread 
the silent and deserted scene of former throng and 
pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of 
the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of 
dusty but gorgeous banners that were once borne 
before them, my imagination conjured up the scene 
when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty 
of the land; glittering with the splendor of jewelled 
rank and military array ; alive with the tread of many 
feet and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had 
passed away; the silence of death had settled again 
upon the place, interrupted only by the casual chirp- 
ing of birds, which had found their way into the chapel, 
and built their nests among its friezes and pendants — 
sure signs of solitariness and desertion. 

When I read the names inscribed on the banners, 
they were those of men scattered far and wide about 
the world, some tossing upon distant seas; some under 
arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy 
intrigues of courts and cabinets; all seeking to deserve 
one more distinction in this mansion of shadowy 
honors: the melancholy reward of a monument. 

Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present 
a touching instance of the equality of the grave; 
which brings down the oppressor to a level with the 



26o THE SKETCH BOOK 

oppressed,^ and mingles the dust of the bitterest ene- 
mies together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty 
Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the lovely 
and unfortunate Mary. ^ Not an hour in the day but 
some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the 
latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The ! 
walls of Elizabeth's sepulchre continually echo with | 
the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival. 

A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where 
Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through 
windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the 
place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and 
tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary 
is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron 
railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem — 
the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down 
to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind 
the chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary. 

The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the 
abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the distant 
voice of the priest repeating the evening service, and 
the faint responses of the choir; these paused for a 
time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion 
and obscurity that were gradually prevailing around, 
gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place : 

For in the silent grave no conversation, 
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, 
No careful father's counsel — nothing 's heard, 
For nothing is, but all oblivion, 
Dust, and an endless darkness. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 261 

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst 
upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled in- 
tensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. 
How well do their volume and grandeur accord with 
this mighty building! With what pomp do they 
swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful 
harmony through these caves of death, and make the 
silent sepulchre vocal ! — And now they rise in triumph 
and acclamation, heaving higher and higher their 
accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. — And 
now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break 
out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft, and 
warble along the roof, and seem to play about these 
lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the 
pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compress- 
ing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. 
What long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping 
concords ! It grows more and more dense and power- 
ful — it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very 
walls — the ear is stunned — the senses are overwhelmed. 
And now it is winding up in full jubilee — it is rising 
from the earth to heaven — the very soul seems rapt 
away and floated upwards on this swelling tide of 
harmony ! 

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which 
a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire: the 
shadows of evening were gradually thickening round 
me; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper 
gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the 
slowly waning day. 



262 THE SKETCH BOOK 

I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I 
descended the flight of steps which lead into the body 
of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of 
Edward the Confessor,^ and I ascended the small 
staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a 
general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The 
shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close 
around it are the sepulchres of various kings and 
queens. From this eminence the eye looks down 
between pillars and funeral trophies to the chapels 
and chambers below, crowded with tombs; where 
warriors, prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie mould- 
ering in their "beds of darkness." Close by me 
stood the great chair of coronation, rudely carved of 
oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. ^ 
The scene seemed almost as if contrived, with theatri- 
cal artifice, to produce an effect upon the beholder. 
Here was a type of the beginning and the end of 
human pomp and power; here it was literally but a 
step from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not 
one think that these incongruous mementos had been 
gathered together as a lesson to living greatness? — to 
show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, 
the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive ; 
how soon that crown which encircles its brow must 
pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and dis- 
graces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet 
of the meanest of the multitude. For, strange to tell, 
even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. There 
is a shocking levity in some natures, which leads them 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 263 

to sport with awful and hallowed things ; and there are 
base minds, which delight to revenge on the illus- 
trious dead the abject homage and grovelling servility 
which they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward 
the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains 
despoiled of their funereal ornaments ; the sceptre has 
been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, 
and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a 
royal monument but bears some proof how false and 
fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some are plun- 
dered; some mutilated; some covered with ribaldry 
and insult — all more or less outraged and dishonored ! 

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming 
through the painted windows in the high vaults above 
me ; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped 
in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles 
grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings 
faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monu- 
ments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain Hght; 
the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the 
cold breath of the grave ; and even the distant footfall 
of a verger, traversing the Poets' Corner, had some- 
thing strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly 
retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the 
portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring 
noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. 

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind 
of the objects I had been contemplating, but found 
they were already fallen into indistinctness and con- 
fusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become 



264 THE SKETCH BOOK 

confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely 
taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought ; 
I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury 
of humiliation ; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the^ 
emptiness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion! 
It is, indeed, the empire of death; his great shadowy 
palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of 
human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on 
the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after 
all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever 
silently turning over his pages; we are too much 
engrossed by the story of the present, to think of the 
characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the 
past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be 
speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the 
hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in 
turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. 
"Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Brown, "find their 
graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how 
we may be buried in our survivors." History fades 
into fable ; fact becomes clouded with doubt and con- 
troversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; 
the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, 
pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their 
epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? What 
is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an 
embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great 
have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sar- 
cophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. 
"The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 265 

hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures 
wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." * 

What then is to insure this pile which now towers 
above me from sharing the fate of mightier mauso- 
leums? The time must come when its gilded vaults, 
which now spring so loftily, shall He in rubbish beneath 
the feet; when, instead of the sound of melody and 
praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken 
arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower — 
when the gairish sunbeam shall break into these 
gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round 
the fallen column; and the foxglove hang its blossoms 
about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. 
Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record 
and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, 
and his very monument becomes a ruin.f 

* Sir T. Brown. 

t For notes on Westminster Abbey, see Appendix. 



CHRISTMAS 

But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the 
hair of his good, gray, old head and beard left? Well, I will 
have that, seeing I cannot have more of him. 

Hue and Cry after Christmas. 

A man might then behold 

At Christmas, in each hall 
Good fires to curb the cold, 

And meat for great and small. 
The neighbors were friendly bidden, 

And all had welcome true. 
The poor from the gates were not chidden 

When this old cap was new. 

Old Song. 

Nothing in England exercises a more delightful 
spell over my imagination, than the lingerings of the 
holiday customs and rural games of former times. 
They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the 
May morning of Hfe, when as yet I only knew the 
world through books, and believed it to be all that 
poets Jiad painted it; and they bring with them the 
flavor of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps, 
with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was 
more homebred, social, and joyous than at present. 
I regret to say that they are daily growing more and 
more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but 

266 



CHRISTMAS 267 

still more obliterated by modern fashion. They 
resemble those picturesque morsels of Gothic archi- 
tecture, which we see crumbling in various parts of the 
country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and 
partly lost in the additions and alterations of later 
days. Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fond- 
ness about the rural game and holiday revel, from 
which it has derived so many of its themes — as the ivy 
winds its rich foliage about the Gothic arch and 
mouldering tower, gratefully repaying their support, 
by clasping together their tottering remains, and, as it 
were, embalming them in verdure. 

Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas 
awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. 
There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends 
w^ith our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of 
hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of 
the church about this season are extremely tender and 
inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the 
origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accom- 
panied its announcement. They gradually increase 
in fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, 
until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning 
that brought peace and good- will to men. I do not 
know a grander effect of music on the moral feel- 
ings, than to hear the full choir and the peaHng organ 
performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, 
and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant 
harmony. 

It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from 



268 THE SKETCH BOOK 

days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates; 
the announcement of the reHgion of peace and love, 
has been made the season for gathering together of 
family connections, and drawing closer again those 
bands of kindred hearts, which the cares and pleasures} 
and sorrows of the world are continually operating toj 
cast loose; of calling back the children of a family, 
who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely 
asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal 
hearth, that rallying place of the affections, there to 
grow young and loving again among the endearing 
mementos of childhood. 

There is something in the very season of the year that 
gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other 
times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from 
the mere beauties of nature. Our feelings sally forth 
and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, 
and we ''live abroad and everywhere." The song of 
the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing 
fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, 
the golden pomp of autumn; earth with its mantle of 
refreshing green, and heaven with its deep delicious 
blue and its cloudy magnificence, all fill us with mute 
but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of 
mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when 
nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in 
her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifica- 
tions to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation 
of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome 
nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut 



CHRISTMAS 269 

in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us 
more keenly disposed for the pleasure of the social 
circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated; our 
friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more 
sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are 
brought more closely together by dependence on each 
other for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart; and 
we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of loving- 
kindness, which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms; 
and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure 
element of domestic felicity. 

The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on 
entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of 
the evening fire. The ruddy blaze diffuses an arti- 
ficial summer and sunshine through the room, and 
lights up each countenance in a kindlier welcome. 
Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into 
a broader and more cordial smile — where is the shy 
glance of love more sweetly eloquent — than by the 
winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry 
wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, 
whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the 
chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling 
of sober and sheltered security, with which we look 
round upon the comfortable chamber and the scene of 
domestic hilarity? 

The English, from the great prevalence of rural 
habit throughout every class of society, have always 
been fond of those festivals and holidays which agree- 
ably interrupt the stillness of country life; and they 



270 THE SKETCH BOOK 

were, in former days, particularly observant of theil 
religious and social rites of Christmas. It is inspiring 
to read even the dry details which some antiquaries 
have given of the quaint humors, the burlesque pag- 
eants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good' 
fellowship, with which this festival was celebrated 
It seemed to throw open every door, and unlock every, 
heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together, 
and blended all ranks in one warm generous flow of! 
joy and kindness. The old halls of castles and manor 
houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas- 
carol, and their ample boards groaned under the 
weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage wel- 
comed the festive season with green decorations of bay 
and holly — the cheerful fire glanced its rays through 
the lattice, inviting the passengers to raise the latch, 
and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, 
beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and 
oft-told Christmas tales. 

One of the least pleasing effects of modern refine- 
ment is the havoc it has made among the hearty old 
holiday customs. It has completely taken off the 
sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of these embellish- 
ments of life, and has worn down society into a more 
smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic 
surface. Many of the games and ceremonials of 
Christmas have entirely disappeared, and, like the 
sherris sack of old Falstaff,^ are become matters of 
speculation and dispute among commentators. They 
flourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when 



CHRISTMAS 271 

men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously; 
times wild and picturesque, which have furnished 
poetry with its richest materials, and the drama with 
its most attractive variety of characters and manners. 
The world has become more worldly. There is more 
of dissipation, and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has 
expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream; and 
has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels 
where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of 
domestic life. Society has acquired a more enlight- 
ened and elegant tone; but it has lost many of its 
strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, its 
honest fireside delights. The traditionary customs of 
golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and 
lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial 
castles and stately manor-houses in which they were 
celebrated. They comported with the shadowy hall, 
the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlor, but 
are unfitted to the light showy saloons and gay 
drawing-rooms of the modern villa. 

Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive 
honors, Christmas is still a period of delightful 
excitement in England. It is gratifying to see that 
home feeling completely aroused which holds so power- 
ful a place in every English bosom. The preparations 
making on every side for the social board that is 
again to unite friends and kindred; the presents of 
good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens of 
regard, and quickeners of kind feelings; the evergreens 
distributed about houses and churches, emblems of 



272 THE SKETCH BOOK 

peace and gladness; all these have the most pleasing 
effect in producing fond associations, and kindling 
benevolent sympathies. Even the sound of the Waits, ^ 
rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid- 
watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect 
harmony. As I have been awakened by them in that 
still and solemn hour, "when deep sleep falleth upon 
man, " I have listened with a hushed delight, and, con- 
necting them with the sacred and joyous occasion, 
have almost fancied them into another celestial choir, 
announcing peace and good-will to mankind. 

How delightfully the imagination, when wrought 
upon by these moral influences, turns everything to 
melody and beauty ! The very crowing of the cock, 
heard sometimes in the profound repose of the country, 
"telling the night watches'' to his feathery dames," 
was thought by the common people to announce the 
approach of this sacred festival. 

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 3 
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
This bird of dawning singeth all night long; 
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; 
The nights are wholesome — then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, 
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. 

Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the 
spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this 
period, what bosom can remain insensible? It is, 
indeed, the season of regenerated feeling — the season 



CHRISTMAS 273 

for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the 
hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart. 

The scene of early love again rises green to memory 
beyond the sterile waste of years; and the idea of 
home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling 
joys, reanimates the drooping spirit; as the Arabian 
breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant 
fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert. 

Stranger and sojourner^ as I am in the land — though 
for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof 
throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship 
welcome me at the threshold — yet I feel the influence 
of the season beaming into my soul from the happy 
looks of those around me. Surely happiness is 
reflective, Hke the Hght of heaven; and every counte- 
nance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent 
enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays 
of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence. He who 
can turn churlishly away from contemplating the 
felicity of his fellow-beings, and can sit down darkling 
and repining in his lonehness when all around is joyful, 
may have his moments of strong excitement and 
selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social 
sympathies which constitute the charm of a merry 
Christmas. 
18 



THE STAGE COACH 

Omne bene 

Sine poena 
Tempus est ludendi. 

Venit hora 

Absque mora 
Libros deponendi. 

Old Holiday School Song. 

In the preceding paper I have made some general 
observations on the Christmas festivities of England, 
and am tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes- 
of a Christmas passed in the country; in perusing 
which I would most courteously invite my reader to 
lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that 
genuine holiday spirit which is tolerant of folly, and 
anxious only for amusement. 

In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I 
rode for a long distance in one of the pubHc coaches, 
on the day preceding Christmas. The coach was 
crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by 
their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of 
relations or friends, to eat the Christmas dinner. It 
was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets 
and boxes of dehcacies ; and hares hung dangling their 
long ears about the coachman's box, presents from 
distant friends for the impending feast. I had three 

274 



THE STAGE COACH 275 

fine rosy-cheeked boys for my fellow-passengers inside, 
full of the buxom health and manly spirit which I have 
observed in the children of this country. They were 
returning home for the holidays in high glee, and 
promising themselves a world of enjoyment. It was 
dehghtful to hear the gigantic plans of the httle rogues, 
and the impracticable feats they were to perform 
during their six weeks' emancipation from the ab- 
horred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. 
They were full of anticipations of the meeting with 
the family and household, down to the very cat and 
dog ; and of the joy they were to give their little sis- 
ters by the presents with which their pockets were 
crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to 
look forward with the greatest impatience was with 
Bantam, which I found to be a pony, and, according 
to their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed 
since the days of Bucephalus. How he could trot! 
how he could run! and then such leaps as he would 
take — there was not a hedge in the whole country 
that he could not clear. 

They were under the particular guardianship of the 
coachman, to whom, whenever an opportunity pre- 
sented, they addressed a host of questions, and pro- 
nounced him one of the best fellows in the world. 
Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary 
air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who 
wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large bunch 
of Christmas greens stuck in the buttonhole of his 
coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care 



276 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and business, but he is particularly so during this- 
season, having so many commissions to execute in 
consequence of the great interchange of presents., 
And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my 
un travelled readers, to have a sketch that may serve 
as a general representation of this very numerous and 
important class of functionaries, who have a dress, a 
manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and 
prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever 
an English stage coachman may be seen, he cannot be 
mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery. 

He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously 
mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by 
hard feeding into every vessel of the skin ; he is swelled 
into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt 
liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a 
multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauli- 
flower, the upper one reaching to his heels. He wears 
a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat; a huge roll of 
colored handkerchief about his neck, knowingly 
knotted and tucked in at the bosom ; and has in sum- 
mer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his buttonhole ; 
the present, most probably, of some enamored country 
lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright color, 
striped, and his small clothes extend far below the 
knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach 
about half-way up his legs. 

All this costume is maintained with much precision ; 
he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent 
materials; and, notwithstanding the seeming grossness 



THE STAGE COACH 277 

of his appearance, there is still discernible that neat- 
ness and propriety of person, which is almost inherent 
in an Englishman. He enjoys great consequence and 
consideration along the road; has frequent confer- 
ences with the village housewives, who look upon him 
as a man of great trust and dependence ; and he seems 
to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed 
country lass. The moment he arrives where the 
horses are to be changed he throws down the reins 
with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to 
the care of the hostler ; his duty being merely to drive 
from one stage to another. When off the box, his 
hands are thrust into the pockets of his great coat, and 
he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most 
absolute lordHness. Here he is generally surrounded 
by an admiring throng of hostlers, stable-boys, shoe- 
blacks, and those nameless hangers-on that infest 
inns and taverns, and run errands, and do all kind of 
odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the drippings 
of the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room . These 
all look up to him as to an oracle ; treasure up his cant 
phrases; echo his opinions about horses and other 
topics of jockey lore; and, above all, endeavor to 
imitate his air and carriage. Every ragamuffin that 
has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in the 
pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an em- 
bryo Coachey. 

Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity 
that reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw 
cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the 



278 THE SKETCH BOOK 

journey. A stage coach, however, carries animation 
always with it, and puts the world in motion as it 
whirls along. The horn, sounded at the entrance of a 
village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten forth 
to meet friends ; some with bundles and bandboxes to i 
secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can 
hardly take leave of the group that accompanies 
them. In the meantime, the coachman has a world 
of small commissions to execute. Sometimes he 
delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small 
parcel or newspaper to the door of a public house ; and 
sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, 
hands to some half -blushing, half -laughing housemaid 
an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. 
As the coach rattles through the village, every one 
runs to the window, and you have glances on every 
side of fresh country faces and blooming giggling girls. 
At the corners are assembled juntos of village idlers 
and wise men, who take their stations there for the 
important purpose of seeing company pass; but the 
sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom 
the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much 
speculation. The smith, with the horse's heel in his 
lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the cyclops round 
the anvil suspend their ringing hammers, and suffer the 
iron to grow cool; and the sooty spectre, in brown 
paper cap, laboring at the bellows, leans on the handle 
for a moment, and permits the asthmatic engine to 
heave a long-drawn sigh, while he glares through the 
murky smoke and sulphureous gleams of the smithy. 



THE STAGE COACH 279 

Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a 
more than usual animation to the country, for it 
seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and 
good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of the 
table were in brisk circulation in the villages; the 
grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged 
with customers. The housewives were stirring briskly 
about, putting their dwellings in order; and the glossy 
branches of holly, with their bright-red berries, began 
to appear at the windows. The scene brought to 
mind an old writer's account of Christmas prepara- 
tions: — "Now capons and hens, beside turkeys, geese, 
and ducks, with beef and mutton — must all die — for in 
twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with 
a Httle. Now plums and spice, sugar and honey, 
square it among ^ pies and broth. Now or never must 
music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to 
get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. The 
country maid leaves half her market, and must be sent 
again, if she forgets a pack of cards on Christmas eve. 
Great is the contention of holly and ivy, whether 
master or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards 
benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he 
will sweetly lick his fingers." 

I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation, 
by a shout from my Httle travelling companions. 
They had been looking out of the coach windows for 
the last few miles, recognizing every tree and cottage 
as they approached home, and now there was a 
general burst of joy — "There 's John! and there 'sold 



28o THE SKETCH BOOK 

Carlo! and there 's Bantam!" cried the happy little 
rogues, clapping their hands. I 

At the end of a lane there was an old sober-looking] 
servant in livery, waiting for them; he was accompan-- 
ied by a superannuated pointer, and by the redoubt- 
able Bantam, a Httle old rat of a pony, with a shaggy 
mane and long rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by 
the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times 
that awaited him. 

I was pleased to see the fondness with which the- 
little fellows leaped about the steady old footman, and' 
hugged the pointer; who wriggled his whole body for 
joy. But Bantam was the great object of interest; 
all wanted to mount at once, and it was with some 
difficulty that John arranged that they should ride by 
turns, and the eldest should ride first. 

Off they set at last; one on the pony, with the dog 
bounding and barking before him, and the others 
holding John's hands; both talking at once, and over- 
powering him with questions about home, and with 
school anecdotes. I looked after them with a feeHng 
m which I do not know whether pleasure or melan- 
choly predominated; for I was reminded of those days 
when, like them, I had neither known care nor sorrow, 
and a hoHday was the summit of earthly feHcity. We 
stopped a few moments afterwards to water the 
horses, and on resuming our route, a turn of the road I 
brought us in sight of a neat country seat. I could I 
just distinguish the forms of a lady and two young 
giris in the portico, and I saw my httle comrades, with ^ 



THE STAGE COACH 281 

Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along the 
carriage road. I leaned out of the coach window, in 
hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of 
trees shut it from my sight. 

In the evening we reached a village where I had 
determined to pass the night. As we drove into the 
great gateway of the inn, I saw on one side the light of 
a rousing kitchen fire beaming through a wijadow. I 
entered, and admired, for the hundredth time, that 
picture of convenience, neatness, and broad honest 
enjoyment, the kitchen of an English inn. It was of 
spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin 
vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there 
with a Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and flitches 
of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke- 
jack made its ceaseless clanking beside the fireplace, 
and a clock ticked in one corner. A well-scoured deal 
table extended along one side of the kitchen, with a 
cold round of beef, and other hearty viands upon it, 
over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed 
mounting guard. Travellers of inferior order were 
preparing to attack this stout repast, while others sat 
smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high- 
backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim house- 
maids were hurrying backwards and forwards under 
the directions of a fresh, bustling landlady; but still 
seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant 
word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group round 
the fire. The scene completely realized Poor Robin's 
humble idea of the comforts of midwinter: 



282 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Now trees their leafy hats do bare i 

To reverence Winter's silver hair; 

A handsome hostess, merry host, 

A pot of ale now and a toast. 

Tobacco and a good coal fire. 

Are things this season doth require.* 

I had not been long at the inn when a post-chaise 
drove up to the door. A young gentleman stept out, 
and by the light of the lamps, I caught a glimpse of a 
countenance which I thought I knew. I moved for- 
ward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. 
I was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a 
sprightly good-humored young fellow, with whom I 
had once travelled on the continent. Our meeting 
was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old 
fellow-traveller always brings up the recollection of a 
thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excel- 
lent jokes. To discuss all these in a transient inter- 
view at an inn was impossible ; and finding that I was 
not pressed for time, and was merely making a tour of 
observation, he insisted that I should give him a day 
or two at his father's country seat, to which he was 
going to pass the hoHdays, and which lay at a few 
miles distance. "It is better than eating a solitary 
Christmas dinner at an inn," said he, "and I can 
assure you of a hearty welcome in something of the old- 
fashioned style." His reasoning was cogent, and I 
must confess the preparation I had seen for universal 

* Poor Robin's Almanac, 1684. 



THE STAGE COACH 283 

festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a 
little impatient of my loneliness. I closed, therefore, 
at once, with his invitation : the chaise drove up to the 
door, and in a few moments I was on my way to the 
family mansion of the Bracebridges. 



CHRISTMAS EVE 

Saint Francis and Saint Benedight 
Blesse this house from wicked wight; 
From the night-mare and the goblin, 
That is hight good fellow Robin: 
Keep it from all evil spirits, 
Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: 

From curfew time 

To the next prime. 

Cartwright. 

It was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely 
cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen 
ground; the postboy smacked his whip incessantly, 
and a part of the time his horses were on a gallop. 
"He knows where he is going," said my companion, 
laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the 
merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. My 
father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old 
school, and prides himself upon keeping up something 
of old Enghsh hospitaHty. He is a tolerable specimen 
of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in its 
purity, the old Enghsh country gentleman; for our 
men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, 
and fashion is carried so much into the country, that 
the strong rich peculiarities of ancient rural life are 
almost poHshed away. My father, however, from early 

284 



CHRISTMAS EVE 285 

years, took honest Peacham* for his text-book, instead 
of Chesterfield; he determined in his own mind, that 
there was no condition more truly honorable and 
enviable than that of a country gentleman on his 
paternal lands, and therefore passes the whole of his 
time on his estate. He is a strenuous advocate for the 
revival of the old rural games and holiday observances, 
and is deeply read in the writers, ancient and modern, 
who have treated on the subject. Indeed his favorite 
range of reading is among the authors who flourished 
at least two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and 
thought more like true Englishmen than any of their 
successors. He even regrets sometimes that he had 
not been born a few centuries earlier, when England 
was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs. 
As he lives at some distance from the main road, in 
rather a lonely part of the country, without any rival 
gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all bless- 
ings to an Englishman, an opportunity of indulging the 
bent of his own humor without molestation. Being 
representative of the oldest family in the neighbor- 
hood, and a great part of the peasantry being his ten- 
ants, he is much looked up to, and, in general, is known 
simply by the appellation of * The Squire ' ; a title which 
has been accorded to the head of the family since time 
immemorial. I think it best to give you these hints 
about my worthy old father, to prepare you for any 
eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd." 

* Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1622, 



286 THE SKETCH BOOK 

We had passed for some time along the wall of a 
park, and at length the chaise stopped at the gate. Itl 
was in a heavy magnificent old style, of iron bars, 
fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers. 
The huge square columns that supported the gate were 
surmounted by the family crest. Close adjoining was; 
the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir-trees, andlj 
almost buried in shrubbery. 

The postboy rang a large porter's bell, which i 
resounded through the still frosty air, and was an-- 
swered by the distant barking of dogs, with which the: 
mansion-house seemed garrisoned. An old woman i 
immediately appeared at the gate. As the moonHght - 
fell strongly upon her, I had a full view of a httle' 
primitive dame, dressed very much in the antique 
taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her 
silver hair peeping from under a cap of snowy white- 
ness. She came courtesying forth, with many ex- 
pressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. 
Her husband, it seemed, was up at the house keeping 
Christmas eve in the servants' hall; they could not do 
without him, as he was the best hand at a song and 
story in the household. 

A/[y friend proposed that we should alight and walk 
through the park to the hall, which was at no great 
distance, while the chaise should follow on. Our road 
wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the 
naked branches of which the moon glittered, as she 
rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless sky. The 
lawn beyond was sheeted with a sHght covering of 



CHRISTMAS EVE 287 

snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams 
caught a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be 
seen a thin transparent vapor, steaHng up from the 
low grounds and threatening gradually to shroud the 
landscape. 

My companion looked around him with transport : — 
*'How often," said he, "have I scampered up this 
avenue, on returning home on school vacations! 
How often have I played under these trees when a boy ! 
I feel a degree of filial reverence for them, as we look 
up to those who have cherished us in childhood. My 
father was always scrupulous in exacting our holidays, 
and having us around him on family festivals. He 
used to direct and superintend our games with the 
strictness that some parents do the studies of their 
children. He was very particular that we should play 
the old English games according to their original form ; 
and consulted old books for precedent and authority 
for every 'merrie disport'; yet I assure you there 
never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of 
the good old gentleman to make his children feel that 
home was the happiest place in the world ; and I value 
this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a 
parent could bestow." 

We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs 
of all sorts and sizes, ''mongrel, puppy, whelp, and 
hound, and curs of low degree," that, disturbed by 
the ring of the porter's bell and the rattling of the 
chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the 
lawn. 



288 THE SKETCH BOOK 

"—The little dogs and all,^ 
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me ! " 

cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of hia 
voice, the bark was changed into a yelp of delight, and 
in a moment he was surrounded and almost over- 
powered by the caresses of the faithful animals. 

We had now come in full view of the old family man- 
sion, partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit upi 
by the cold moonshine. It was an irregular building,, 
of some magnitude, and seemed to be of the archi- 
tecture of different periods. One wing was evidently 
very ancient, with heavy stone-shafted bow windows 5 
jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the J 
foHage of which the small diamond-shaped panes off 
glass gHttered with the moonbeams. The rest of the 3 
house was in the French taste of Charles the Second's 5 
time, having been repaired and altered, as my friend, 
told me, by one of his ancestors, who returned withi 
that monarch at the Restoration. The grounds 
about the house were laid out in the old formall 
manner of artificial flower-beds, cHpped shrubberies, 
raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, orna- 
mented with urns, a leaden statue or two, and a jet of 
water. The old gentleman, I was told, was extremely 
careful to preserve this obsolete finery in all its original 
state. He admired this fashion in gardening; it had 
an air of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and; 
befitting good old family style. The boasted imitation ' 
of nature in modern gardening had sprung up with 



CHRISTMAS EVE 289 

modem republican notions, but did not suit a mon- 
archical government; it smacked of the levelling 
system — I could not help smiling at this introduction 
of politics into gardening, though I expressed some 
apprehension that I should find the old gentleman 
rather intolerant in his creed. — Frank assured me, 
however, that it was almost the only instance in which 
he had ever heard his father meddle with politics ; and 
he believed that he had got this notion from a member 
of parliament who once passed a few weeks with him. 
The squire was glad of any argument to defend his 
clipped yew-trees and formal terraces, which had been 
occasionally attacked by modern landscape gardeners. 
As we approached the house, we heard the sound of 
music, and now and then a burst of laughter, from one 
end of the building. This, Bracebridge said, must 
proceed from the servants' hall, where a great deal of 
revelry was permitted, and even encouraged by the 
squire, throughout the twelve days of Christmas, pro- 
vided everything was done conformably to ancient 
usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman 
blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white 
loaf, bob apple, and snap dragon; the Yule clog and 
Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistle- 
toe, with its white berries, hung up, to the imminent 
peril of all the pretty housemaids.* 

*The mistletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens at 
Christmas; and the young men have the privilege of kissing 
the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. 
When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases. 



290 THE SKETCH BOOK 

So intent were the servants upon their sports thati 
we had to ring repeatedly before we could make our-' 
selves heard. On our arrival being announced, the 
squire came out to receive us, accompanied by his twa 
other sons; one a young officer in the army, home on 
leave of absence; the other an Oxonian,^ just from the 
university. The squire was a fine, healthy-looking 
old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round am 
open florid countenance; in which the physiognonjist, 
with the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint on 
two, might discover a singular mixture of whim and' 
benevolence. 

The family meeting was warm and affectionate: as 
the evening was far advanced, the squire would noti 
permit us to change our travelling dresses, but usheiedl 
us at once to the company, which was assembled in ai 
large old-fashioned hall. It was composed of differentl] 
branches of a numerous family connection, where: 
there were the usual proportion of old uncles andl 
aunts, comfortable married dames, superannuated! 
spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledgedj 
striplings, and bright-eyed boarding-school hoydens. 
They were variously occupied: some at a round game 
of cards; others conversing around the fireplace; at one 
end of the hall was a group of the young folks, some 
nearly grown up, others of a more tender and budding 
age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusiom| 
of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls, 
about the floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy 
beings, who, having frolicked through a happy day,] 



CHRISTMAS EVE 291 

had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful 
night. 

While the mutual greetings were going on between 
young Bracebridge and his relatives, I had time to 
scan the apartment. I have called it a hall, for so it 
had certainly been in old times, and the squire had 
evidently endeavored to restore it to something of .its 
primitive state. Over the heavy projecting fireplace 
was suspended a picture of a warrior in armor, standing 
by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung a 
helmet, buckler, and lance. At one end an enormous 
pair of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches 
serving as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and 
spurs; and in the corners of the apartment were 
fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, and other sporting imple- 
ments. The furniture was of the cumbrous workman- 
ship of former days, though some articles of modern 
convenience had been added, and the oaken floor had 
been carpeted; so that the whole presented an odd 
mixture of parlor and hall. 

The grate had been removed from the wide over- 
whelming fireplace, ^ to make way for a fire of wood, in 
the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and 
blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of Hght and 
heat: this I understood was the Yule clog, which the 
squire was particular in having brought in and illu- 
mined on a Christmas eve, according to ancient custom.* 

* The Yule clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a 
tree, brought into the house with great ceremony, on Christmas 
eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last year's 



292 THE SKETCH BOOK 

It was really delightful to see the old squire seated in 
his hereditary elbow chair, by the hospitable fireside of 
his ancestors, and looking around him like the sun of a 
system, beaming warmth and gladness to every heart. 
Even the very "dog that lay stretched at his feet, as he 
lazily shifted his position and yawned, would look 
fondly up in his master's face, wag his tail against the i 
floor, and stretch himself again to sleep, confident of ' 
kindness and protection. There is an emanation 
from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be 
described, but is immediately felt, and puts the 
stranger at once at his ease. I had not been seated 

clog. While it lasted, there was great drinking, singing, and tell- 
ing of tales. Sometimes it was accompanied by Christmas 
candles; but in the cottages the only light was from the ruddy- 
blaze of the great wood fire. The Yule clog was to burn all night; 
if it went out, it was considered a sign of ill luck. 
Herrick mentions it in one of his songs: — 

Come, bring with a noise, 
My merrie, merrie boyes, 
The Christmas log to the firing; 
While my good dame, she 
Bids ye all be free, 

And drink to your hearts desiring. 
f< 

The Yule clog is still burnt in many farmhouses and kitchens 
in England, particularly in the north, and there are several super- 
stitions connected with it among the peasantry. If a squinting 
person come to the house while it is burning, or a person bare- 
footed, it is considered an ill omen. The brand remaining from 
the Yule clog is carefully put away to light the next year's Christ- 
mas fire. 



CHRISTMAS EVE 293 

many minutes by the comfortable hearth of the worthy 
old cavalier, before I found myself as much at home as 
if I had been one of the family. 

Supper was announced shortly after our arrival. It 
was served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels 
of which shone with wax, and around which were 
several family portraits decorated with holly and ivy. 
Besides the accustomed Hghts, two great wax tapers, 
called Christmas candles, wreathed with greens, were 
placed on a highly-polished beaufet among the family 
plate. The table was abundantly spread with sub- 
stantial fare; but the squire made his supper of fru- 
menty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk, 
with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for 
Christmas eve. 

I was happy to find my old friend, minced pie, in the 
retinue of the feast; and finding him to be perfectly 
orthodox, and that I need not be ashamed of my pre- 
dilection, I greeted him with all the warmth wherewith 
we usually greet an old and very genteel acquaintance. 

The mirth of the company was greatly promoted by 
the humors of an eccentric personage whom A^lr. Brace- 
bridge always addressed with the quaint appellation of 
Master Simon. ^ He was a tight brisk little man, with 
the air of an arrant old bachelor. His nose was 
shaped like the bill of a parrot ; his face slightly pitted 
with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, 
like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye of 
great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and 
lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. 



294 THE SKETCH BOOK 

He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very^ 
much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, andl 
making infinite merriment by harping upon old! 
themes; which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the J 
family chronicles did not permit me to enjoy. It 
seemed to be his great delight during supper to keep a 
young girl next him in a continual agony of stifled 
laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of 
her mother, who sat opposite. Indeed, he was the 
idol of the younger part of the company, who laughed 
at everything he said or did, and at every turn of his 
countenance; I could not wonder at it, for he must 
have been a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes. 
He could imitate Punch and Judy; xnake an old 
woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt cork 
and pocket-handkerchief ; and cut an orange into such 
a ludicrous caricature, that the young folks were ready 
to die with laughing. 

I was let briefly into his history by Frank Brace- 
bridge. He was an old bachelor, of a small independ- 
ent income, which, by careful management, was 
sufficient for all his wants. He revolved through the 
family system like a vagrant comet in its orbit ; some- 
times visiting one branch, and sometimes another 
quite remote; as is often the case with gentlemen of 
extensive connections and small fortunes in England. 
He had a chirping buoyant disposition, always enjoy- 
ing the present moment; and his frequent change of 
scene and company prevented his acquiring those 
rusty unaccommodating habits with which old 



I 



CHRISTMAS EVE 295 

bachelors are so uncharitably charged. He was a 
complete family chronicle, being versed in the gene- 
alogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole houGe 
of Bracebridge, which made him a great favorite with 
the old folks; he was a beau of all the elder ladies 
and superannuated spinsters, among whom he was 
habitually considered rather a young fellow, and he 
was master of the revels among the children; so that 
there was not a more popular being in the sphere in 
which he moved than Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of 
late years, he had resided almost entirely with the 
squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom 
he particularly delighted by jumping with his humor 
in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old 
song to suit every occasion. We had presently a 
specimen of his last-mentioned talent, for no sooner 
was supper removed, and spiced wines and other 
beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than 
Master Simon was called on for a good old Christmas 
song. He bethought himself for a moment, and then, 
with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice that was by no 
means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a 
falsetto, Hke the notes of a spHt reed, he quavered forth 
a quaint old ditty. 

Now Christmas is come, 

Let us beat up the drum, 
And call all our neighbors together, 

And when they appear, 

Let us make them such cheer, 
As will keep out the wind and the weather, etc. 



296 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The supper had disposed every one to gayety, and 
an old harper was summoned from the servants' hall, 
where he had been strumming all the evening, and to 
all appearance comforting himself with some of the 
squire's home-brewed. He was a kind of hanger-on, 
I was told, of the establishment, and, though osten- 
sibly a resident of the village, was oftener to be found 
in the squire's kitchen than his own home, the old 
gentleman being fond of the sound of ''harp in hall." 

The dance, like most dances after supper, was a 
merry one; some of the older folks joined in it, and the 
squire himself figured down several couple with a part- 
ner, with whom he affirmed he had danced at every 
Christmas for nearly half a cencury. Master Simon, 
who seemed to be a kind of connecting link between the 
old times and the new, and to be withal a little anti- 
quated in the taste of his accomplishments, evidently 
piqued himself on his dancing, and was endeavoring to 
gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and other 
graces of the ancient school ; but he had unluckily as- 
sorted himself with a little romping girl from boarding- 
school, who, by her wild vivacity, kept him continually 
on the stretch, and defeated all his sober attempts at 
elegance : — such are the ill-assorted matches to which 
antique gentlemen are unfortunately prone! 

The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out 
one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a 
thousand little knaveries with impunity : he was full of 
practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts 
and cousins; yet, like all madcap youngsters, he was a 



CHRISTMAS EVE 297 

universal favorite among the women. The most 
interesting couple in the dance was the young officer 
and a ward of the squire's, a beautiful blushing girl of 
seventeen. From several shy glances which I had 
noticed in the course of the evening, I suspected there 
was a little kindness growing up between them; and, 
indeed, the young soldier was just the hero to captivate 
a romantic girl. He was tall, slender, and handsome, 
and, like most young British officers of late years, had 
picked up various small accomplishments on the conti- 
nent — he could talk French and Italian — draw land- 
scapes, sing very tolerably — dance divinely; but, 
above all, he had been v/ounded at Waterloo: — what 
girl of seventeen, well read in poetry and romance, 
could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfection ! 
The moment the dance was over, he caught up a 
guitar, and, lolling against the old marble fireplace, in 
an attitude which I am half inclined to suspect was 
studied, began the little French air of the Troubadour. 
The squire, however, exclaimed against having any- 
thing on Christmas eve but good old English; upon 
which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a 
moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into 
another strain, and, with a charming air of gallantry, 
gave Herrick's "Night-Piece to Julia." 

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee, 

And the elves also, 

Whose little eyes glow 
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 



298 THE SKETCH BOOK 

No Will o' the Wisp mislight thee; 
Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee; 

But on, on thy way, 

Not making a stay, 
Since ghost there is none to affright thee. 

Then let not the dark thee cumber; 
What though the moon does slumber, 

The stars of the night 

Will lend thee their light, 
Like tapers clear without number. 

Then Julia, let me woo thee, 
Thus, thus to come unto me. 

And when I shall meet 

Thy silvery feet, 
My soul I '11 pour into thee. 

The song might or might not have been intended in 
compHment to the fair JuHa, for so I found his partner 
was called; she, however, was certainly unconscious of 
any such application, for she never looked at the 
singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the floor. Her 
face was suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush, and 
there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that 
was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; 
indeed, so great was her indifference, that she amused 
herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hot- 
house flowers, and by the time the song was concluded 
the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor. 

The party now broke up for the night with the kind- 
hearted old custom of shaking hands. As I passed 
through the hall, on my way to my chamber, the dying 



CHRISTMAS EVE 299 

embers of the Yule clog still sent forth a dusky glow, 
and had it not been the season when "no spirit dares 
stir abroad, " I should have been half tempted to steal 
from my room at midnight, and peep whether the 
fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth. 
My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the 
ponderous furniture of which might have been fabri- 
cated in the days of the giants. The room was 
panelled with cornices of heavy carved work, in which 
flowers and grotesque faces were strangely inter- 
mingled; and a row of black-looking portraits stared 
mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was of 
rich, though faded damask, with a lofty tester, and 
stood in a niche opposite a bow window. I had 
scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to 
break forth in the air just below the window. I 
listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which I 
concluded to be the Waits from some neighboring 
village. They went round the house, playing under 
the windows. I drew aside the curtains to hear them 
more distinctly. The moonbeams fell through the 
upper part of the casement, partially lighting up the 
antiquated apartment. The sounds, as they receded, 
became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord 
with the quiet and moonlight. I listened and lis- 
tened — they became more and more tender and re- 
mote, and, as they gradually died away, my head 
sunk upon the pillow, and I fell asleep. 



CHRISTMAS DAY 

Dark and dull night, flie hence away, 
And give the honor to this day 
That sees December turn'd to May. 



Why does the chilHng winter's morne 
Smile like a field beset with corn? 
Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, 
Thus on the sudden? — Come and see 
The cause why things thus fragrant be. 

Herrick. 

When I woke the next morning, it seemed as if all 
the events of the preceding evening had been a dream, 
and nothing but the identity of the ancient chamber 
convinced me of their reality. While I lay musing on 
my pillow, I heard the sound of Httle feet pattering; 
outside of the door, and a whispering consultation.' 
Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old 
Christmas carol, the burden of which was — 

Rejoice, our Saviour he was born 
On Christmas day in the morning. 

I rose softly, slipt on my clothes, opened the door 
suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little 
fairy groups that a painter could imagine. It consisted 

300 



CHRISTMAS DAY 301 

of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, 
and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of 
the house, and singing at every chamber door; but my 
sudden appearance frightened them into mute bash- 
fulness. They remained for a moment playing on 
their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing 
a shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by 
one impulse, they scampered away, and as they 
turned an angle of the gallery, I heard them laughing 
in triumph at their escape. 

Everything conspired to produce kind and happy 
feelings in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. 
The window of my chamber looked out upon what in 
summer would have been a beautiful landscape. 
There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the 
foot of it, and a track of park beyond, with noble 
clumps of trees, and herds of deer. At a distance was 
a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage chim- 
neys hanging over it ; and a church with its dark spire 
in strong relief against the clear, cold sky. The house 
was surrounded with evergreens, according to the 
English custom, which would have given almost an 
appearance of summer ; but the morning was extremely 
frosty; the light vapor of the preceding evening had 
been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the trees 
and every blade of grass with its fine crystallizations. 
The rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect 
among the glittering foliage. A robin, perched upon 
the top of a mountain ash that hung its clusters of red 
berries just before my window, was basking himself in 



302 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the sunshine, and piping a few querulous notes; and j 
peacock was displaying all the glories of his train, anc 
strutting with the pride and gravity of a Spanisl 
grandee, on the terrace walk below. 

I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant 
appeared to invite me to family prayers. He showec 
me the way to a small chapel in the old wing of the 
house, where I found the principal part of the familji 
already assembled in a kind of gallery, furnished with! 
cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the ser- 
vants were seated on benches below. The old gentle- 
man read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, 
and Master Simon acted as clerk, and made the 
responses; and I must do him the justice to say that he 
acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum. 

The service was followed by a Christmas carol 
which Mr. Bracebridge himself had constructed from i 
poem of his favorite author, Herrick; and it had beer 
adapted to an old church melody by Master Simon, 
As there were several good voices among the house- 
hold, the effect was extremely pleasing; but I was par- 
ticularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, and 
sudden sally of grateful feelins:, with which the worthy 
squire delivered one stanza; his eye ghstenine, and hisi 
voice rambling out of all the bounds of time and tune: 

J 

'T is thou that crown 'st my glittering hearth 

With guiltlesse mirth, 
And giv'st me Wassaile bowles to drink 

Spiced to the brink: 



CHRISTMAS DAY 303 

Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand 

That soiles my land: 
And giv'st me for my bushell sowne, 

Twice ten for one. 

I afterwards understood that early morning service 
was read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout 
the year, either by Mr. Bracebridge or by some mem- 
ber of the family. It was once almost universally the 
case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of England, 
and it is much to be regretted that the custom is 
falling into neglect; for the dullest observer must be 
sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those 
households, where the occasional exercise of a beauti- 
ful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the 
key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes 
every spirit to harmony. 

Our breakfast consisted of what the squire denomi- 
nated true old English fare. He indulged in some 
bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea and 
toast, which he censured as among the causes of 
modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline 
of old English heartiness; and though he admitted 
them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet 
there was a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale, 
on the sideboard. 

After breakfast I walked about the grounds with 
Frank Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, 
as he was called by everybody but the squire. We 
were escorted by a number of gentlemanlike dogs, 
that seemed loungers about the establishment; from 



304 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the frisking spaniel to the steady old stag-hound; the 
last of which was of a race that had been in the family 
time out of mind; they were all obedient to a dog- 
whistle which hung to Master Simon's buttonhole, 
and in the midst of their gambols would glance an eye: 
occasionally upon a small switch he carried in his hand. 
The old mansion had a still more venerable look in 
the yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight; and I 
could not but feel the force of the squire's idea, that the 
formal terraces, heavily moulded balustrades, and 
clipped yew-trees carried with them an air of proud 
aristocracy. There appeared to be an unusual num- 
ber of peacocks about the place, and I was making 
some remarks upon what I termed a flock of them, 
that were basking under a sunny wall, when I was 
gently corrected in my phraseology by Master Simon, 
who told me that, according to the most ancient and 
approved treatise on hunting, I must say a muster of 
peacocks. "In the same way," added he, with a 
slight air of pedantry, "we say a flight of doves or 
swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, o 
cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks." He 
went on' to inform me that, according to Sir Anthony 
Fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird "both 
understanding and glory; for, being praised, he will 
presently set up his tail, chiefly against the sun, to the 
intent you may the better behold the beauty thereof 
But at the fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will 
mourn and hide himself in corners, till his tail come 
again as it was." 



CHRISTMAS DAY 305 

I could not help smiling at this display of small 
erudition on so whimsical a subject; but I found that 
the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the 
hall; for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they 
were great favorites with his father, who was extremely 
careful to keep up the breed; partly because they 
belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at the 
stately banquets of the olden time ; and partly because 
they had a pomp and magnificence about them, highly 
becoming an old family mansion. Nothing, he was 
accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and 
dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone 
balustrade. 

Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an 
appointment at the parish church with the village 
choristers, who were to perform some music of his 
selection. There was something extremely agreeable 
in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little man ; 
and I confess I had been somewhat surprised at his apt 
quotations from authors who certainly were not in the 
range of every-day reading. I mentioned this last 
circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told me with 
a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of erudi- 
tion was confined to some half a dozen old authors, 
which the squire had put into his hands, and which 
he read over and over, whenever he had a studious 
fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long 
winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's Book of 
Husbandry; Markham's Country Contentments; the 
Tretyse of Hunting; by Sir Thomas Cockayne, Knight; 



3o6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Izaac Walton's^ Angler, and two or three more such! 
ancient worthies of the pen, were his standard author-- 
ities; and, Hke all men who know but a few books, he^ 
looked up to them with a kind of idolatry, and quoted 1 
them on all occasions. As to his songs, they were^ 
chiefly picked out of old books in the squire's library, , 
and adapted to tunes that were popular among the: 
choice spirits of the last century. His practical; 
application of scraps of literature, however, had 
caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book:j 
knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and smallll 
sportsmen of the neighborhood. 

While we were talking we heard the distant tolling 
of the village bell, and I was told that the squire was a 
little particular in having his household at church on a 
Christmas morning ; considering it a day of pouring out 
of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old Tusser observed. 

At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, 

And feast thy poor neighbors, the great with the small. 

"If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank 
Bracebridge, "I can promise you a specimen of my 
cousin Simon's musical achievements. As the church 
is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from the 
village amateurs, and established a musical club for 
their improvement; he has also sorted a choir, as he 
sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to the 
directions of Jervaise Markham, in his Country Con- 
tentments; for the bass he has sought out all the ' deep, 



CHRISTMAS DAY 307 

solemn mouths,* and for the tenor the 'loud-ringing 
mouths, ' among the country bumpkins ; and for ' sweet 
mouths,' he has culled with curious taste among the 
prettiest lasses in the neighborhood; though these last, 
he affirms, are the most difficult to keep in tune; your 
pretty female singer being exceedingly wayward and 
capricious, and very liable to accident." 

As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine 
and clear, the most of the family walked to the church, 
which was a very old building of gray stone, and stood 
near a village, about half a mile from the park gate. 
Adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, which seemed 
coeval with the church. The front of it was perfectly 
matted wkh a yew-tree, that had been trained against 
its walls, through the dense foliage of which, apertures 
had been formed to admit light into the small antique 
lattices. As we passed this sheltered nest, the parson 
issued forth and preceded us. 

I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, 
such as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of 
a rich patron's table, but I was disappointed. The 
parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a 
grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood off from each 
ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away 
within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. He wore a 
rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that would 
have held the church Bible and prayer-book: and his 
small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted in 
large shoes, decorated with enormous buckles. 

I was informed by Frank Bracebridge, that the par- 



3o8 THE SKETCH BOOK 

son had been a chum of his father's at Oxford, and had 
received this living shortly after the latter had come to 
his estate. He was a complete black-letter^ hunter; 
and would scarcely read a work printed in the Roman 
character. The editions of Caxton and Wynkin de 
Worde were his delight; and he was indefatigable in 
his researches after such old English writers as have 
fallen into oblivion from their worthlessness. In 
deference, perhaps, to the notions of Mr. Bracebridge, 
he had made diligent investigations into the festive 
rites and holiday customs of former times; and had 
been as zealous in the inquiry as if he had been a boon 
companion; but it was merely with that plodding 
spirit with which men of adust temperament follow up 
any track of study, merely because it is denominated 
learning; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, whether it 
be the illustration of the wisdom or of the ribaldry and 
obscenity of antiquity. He had pored over these old 
volumes so intensely that they seemed to have been 
reflected in his countenance; which, if the face be 
indeed an index of the mind, might be compared to a 
title-page of black-letter. 

On reaching the church porch, we found the parson 
rebuking the gray-headed sexton for having used mis- 
tletoe among the greens with which the church was 
decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy plant, 
profaned by having been used by the Druids in their 
mystic ceremonies ; and though it might be innocently 
employed in the festive ornamenting of halls and 
kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of the 



CHRISTMAS DAY 309 

Church^ as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred 
purposes. So tenacious was he on this point, that the 
poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part of 
the humble trophies of his taste, before the parson 
would consent to enter upon the service of the day. 

The interior of the church was venerable but simple ; 
on the walls were several mural monuments of the 
Bracebridges, and just beside the altar was a tomb of 
ancient workmanship, on which lay the effigy of a 
warrior in armor, with his legs crossed, a sign of his 
having been a crusader. I was told it was one of the 
family who had signalized himself in the Holy Land, 
and the same whose picture hung over the fireplace in 
the hall. 

During service. Master Simon stood up in the pew, 
and repeated the responses very audibly; evincing 
that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed 
by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of old 
family connections. I observed too that he turned 
over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something 
of a flourish; possibly to show off an enormous seal- 
ring which enriched one of his fingers, and which had 
the look of a family relic. But he was evidently most 
solicitous about the musical part of the service, keep- 
ing his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beating 
time with much gesticulation and emphasis. 

The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a 
most whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the 
other, am.ong which I particularly noticed that of the 
village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating forehead 



310 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and chin, who played on the clarionet, and seemed to 
have blown his face to a point ; and there was another, 
a short pursy man, stooping and laboring at a bass- 
viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald 
head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two or 
three pretty faces among the female singers, to which 
the keen air of a frosty morning had given a bright 
rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently 
been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, more for tone 
than looks; and as several had to sing from the same 
book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies, 
not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see 
on country tombstones. 

The usual services of the choir were managed 
tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a 
little behind the instrumental, and some loitering 
fiddler now and then making up for lost time by 
travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and 
clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter to be in 
at the death. But the great trial was an anthem that 
had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, 
and on which he had founded great expectation. 
Unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset ; the 
musicians became flurried; Master Simon was in a 
fever ; everything went on lamely and irregularly until 
they came to a chorus beginning "Now let us sing with 
one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting 
company: all became discord and confusion; each 
shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or, 
rather, as soon as he could, excepting one old chorister 



CHRISTMAS DAY 311 

in a pair of horn spectacles, bestriding and pinching a 
long sonorous nose, who happened to stand a little 
apart, and, being wrapped up in his own melody, kept 
on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his 
book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least 
three bars' duration. 

The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the 
rites and ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of 
observing it not merely as a day of thanksgiving, but 
of rejoicing ; supporting the correctness of his opinions 
by the earliest usages of the Church, and enforcing 
them by the authorities of Theophilus of Cesarea, St. 
Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and a cloud 
more' of saints and fathers, from whom he made 
copious quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive 
the necessity of such a mighty array of forces to main- 
tain a point which no one present seemed inclined to 
dispute; but I soon found that the good man had a 
legion of ideal adversaries to contend with; having, in 
the course of his researches on the subject of Christ- 
mas, got completely embroiled in the sectarian con- 
troversies of the Revolution, when the Puritans made 
such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the Church, 
and poor old Christmas was driven out of the land by 
proclamation of Parliament.* The worthy parson 

* From the Flying Eagle, a small Gazette, published Decem- 
ber 24, 1652: "The House spent much time this day about the 
business of the Navy, for settling the affairs at sea, and before 
they rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance against 
Christmas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16; 



312 THE SKETCH BOOK 

lived but with times past, and knew but little of the 
present. 

Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement 
of his antiquated little study, the pages of old timej 
were to him as the gazettes of the day ; while the era of 
the Revolution was mere modern history. He forgot 
that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery 
persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; 
when plum porridge was denounced as ''mere popery, " 
and roast-beef as anti-christian ; and that Christmas 
had been brought in again triumphantly with the 
merry court of King Charles at the Restoration. He 
kindled into warmth with the ardor of his contest, and 
the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to com- 
bat; he had a stubborn conflict, with old Prynne and 
two or three other forgotten champions of the Round 
Heads, ^ on the subject of Christmas festivity; and con- 
cluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and 
affecting manner, to stand to the traditional customs 
of their fathers, and feast and make merry on this 
joyful anniversary of the Church. 

I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently 

I Cor. XV. 14, 17; and in honor of the Lord's Day, grounded upon 
these Scriptures, John xx. i; Rev. i. 10; Psalm, cxviii. 24; Lev. 
xxiii. 7, 11; Mark xv. 8; Psalm Ixxxiv. 10, in which Christmas is 
called Anti-Christ's masse, and those Massemongers and Papists 
who observe it, etc In consequence of which Parliament spent 
some time in consultation about the abolition of Christmas day, 
passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following 
day, which was commonly called Christmas day. " 



CHRISTMAS DAY 313 

with more immediate effects ; for on leaving the church 
the congregation seemed one and all possessed with the 
gayety of spirit so earnestly enjoined by their pastor. 
The elder folks gathered in knots in the churchyard, 
greeting and shaking hands ; and the children ran about 
crying Ule ! Ule ! and repeating some uncouth rhymes,* 
which the parson, who had joined us, informed me had 
been handed down from days of yore. The villagers 
doffed their hats to the squire as he passed, giving him 
the good wishes of the season with every appearance of 
heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to the hall, 
to take something to keep out the cold of the weather ; 
and I heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, 
which convinced me that, in the midst of his enjoy- 
ments, the worthy old cavalier had not forgotten the 
true Christmas virtue of charity. 

On our way homeward his heart seemed overflowed 
with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over 
a rising ground which commanded something of a pros- 
pect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then 
reached our ears : the squire paused for a few moments, 
and looked around with an air of inexpressible benig- 
nity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient 
to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frosti- 
ness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey 
had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin 
covering of snow from every southern declivitv, and to 

* "Ule! Ule! 

Three puddings in a pule 
Crack nuts and cry ule!" 



314 THE SKETCH BOOK 

bring out the living green which adorns an English 
landscape even in midwinter. Large tracts of smiling 
verdure contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the 
shaded slopes and hollows. Every sheltered bank, on 
which the broad rays rested, yielded its silver rill of: 
cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping 
grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute to 
the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the 
earth. There was something truly cheering in this 
triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty thral- 
dom of winter; it was, as the squire observed, an em- 
blem of Christmas hospitality, breaking through the 
chills of ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every 
heart into a flow. He pointed with pleasure to the 
indications of good cheer reeking from the chimneys of 
the comfortable farmhouses, and lowthatched cottages. 
"I love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rich 
and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the 
year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome 
wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world 
thrown all open to you; and I am almost disposed to 
join with Poor Robin, in his malediction on every 
churlish enemy to this honest festival — 

Those who at Christmas do repine 

And would fain hence dispatch him, 
May they with old Duke Humphry dine, ^ 
Or else may Squire Ketch ^ catch 'em. 

The squire went on to lament the deplorable decay 
of the games and amusements which were once preva- 



CHRISTMAS DAY 315 

lent at this season among the lower orders, and 
countenanced by the higher; when the old halls of the 
castles and manor-houses were thrown open at day- 
light; when the tables were covered with brawn, and 
beef, and humming ale; when the harp and the carol 
resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were 
alike welcome to enter and make merry.* "Our old 
games and local customs, " said he, "had a great effect 
in making the peasant fond of his home, and the pro- 
motion of them by the gentry made him fond of his 
lord. They made the times merrier, and kinder, and 
better, and I can truly say, with one of our old poets : 

I like them well — the curious preciseness 
And all-pretended gravity of those 
That seek to banish hence these harmless sports, 
Have thrust away much ancient honesty. 

"The nation," continued he, "is altered; we have 
almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They 
have broken asunder from the higher classes, and 
seem to think their interests are separate. They have 
become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, 

* "An EngHsh gentleman, at the opening of the great day, i.e., 
on Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neigh- 
bors enter his hall by daybreak. The strong beer was broached 
and the blackjacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar and 
nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great 
sausage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must 
take the maiden (i. e., the cook) by the arms, and run her round 
the market-place till she is shamed of her laziness. " — Round about 
our Sea- Coal Fire. 



3i6 , THE SKETCH BOOK 

listen to ale-house politicians, and talk of reform. 
I think one mode to keep them in good humor in these 
hard times would be for the nobility and gentry to pass 
more time on their estates, mingle more among th©^ 
country people, and set the merry old English games? 
going again." 

Such was the good squire's project for mitigating 
public discontent ^ : and, indeed, he had once attempted 
to put his doctrine in practice, and a few years before 
had kept open house during the holidays in the old 
style. The country people, however, did not under- 
stand how to play their parts in the scene of hospi- 
tality; many uncouth circumstances occurred; the 
manor was overrun by all the vagrants of the country, 
and more beggars drawn into the neighborhood in one 
week than the parish officers could get rid of in a year. 
Since then, he had contented himself with inviting the 
decent part of the neighboring peasantry to call at the 
hall on Christmas day, and with distributing beef, and 
bread, and ale, among the poor, that they might make 
merry in their own dwellings. 

We had not been long home when the sound of 
music was heard from a distance. A band of country 
lads, without coats, their shirt-sleeves fancifully tied 
with ribbons, their hats decorated with greens, and 
clubs in their hands, was seen advancing up the ave 
nue, followed by a large number of villagers and peas- 
antry. They stopped before the hall door, where the 
music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads performed 
a curious and intricate dance, advancing, retreating, 



CHRISTMAS DAY 317 

and striking their clubs together, keeping exact time to 
the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's 
skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept 
capering round the skirts of the dance, and rattling a 
Christmas box with many antic gesticulations. 

The squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great 
interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its 
origin, which he traced to the times when the Romans 
held possession of the island ; plainly proving that this 
was a lineal descendant of the sword dance of the an- 
cients. "It was now," he said, ''nearly extinct, but 
he had accidentally met with traces of it in the neigh- 
borhood, and had encouraged its revival; though, to 
tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by the 
rough cudgel play, and broken heads in the evening. " 

After the dance was concluded, the whole party was 
entertained with brawn and beef, and stout home- 
brewed. The squire himself mingled among the 
rustics, and was received with awkward demonstra- 
tions of deference and regard. It is true I perceived 
two or three of the younger peasants, as they were 
raising their tankards to their mouths, when the 
squire's back was turned, making something of a 
grimace, and giving each other the wink; but the 
moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces, 
and were exceedingly demure. With Master Simon, 
however, they all seemed more at their ease. His 
varied occupations and amusements had made him 
well known throughout the neighborhood. He was a 
visitor at every farmhouse and cottage ; gossiped with 



I 



318 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the farmers and their wives; romped with thei] 
daughters; and, hke that type of a vagrant bachelorj' 
the humblebee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lip 
of the country round. 

The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way befor 
good cheer and affability. There is something genuin^ 
and affectionate in the gayety of the lower orders;, 
when it is excited by the bounty and familiarity o| 
those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enterSi 
into their mirth, and a kind word or a small pleasantry, 
frankly uttered by a patron gladdens the heart of the 
dependent more than oil and wine. When the squire 
had retired, the merriment increased, and there was 
much joking and laughter, particularly between 
Master Simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed 
farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the village; for 
I observed all his companions to wait with open 
mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous 
laugh before they could well understand them. 

The whole house indeed seemed abandoned to 
merriment : as I passed to miy room to dress for dinner, 
I heard the sound of music in a small court, and look- 
ing through a window that commanded it, I perceived 
a band of wandering musicians, with pandean pipes, 
and tambourine; a pretty, coquettish housemaid was 
dancing a jig with a smart country lad, while several o: 
the other servants were looking on. In the midst o: 
her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the 
window, and, coloring up, ran off with an air of roguish 
affected confusion. 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 

Lo, now is come our joyful'st feast! 
Let every man be jolly, 
Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest, 

And every post with holly. 
Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke, 

And Christmas blocks are burning; 
Their ovens they with bak't meats choke 
And all their spits are turning. 
Without the door let sorrow lie, 
I And if, for cold, it hap to die, 

Wee'le bury't in a Christmas pye, 
And evermore be merry. 
I Withers' Juvenilia. 

I HAD finished my toilet, and was loitering with 
Frank Bracebridge in the library, when we heard a 
distant thwacking sound, which he informed me was a 
signal for the serving up of the dinner. The squire 
kept up old customs in kitchen as well as hall ; and the 
rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, 
summoned the servants to carry in the meats. 

Just in this nick the cook knock'd thrice, 
And all the waiters in a trice 

His summ.ons did obey; 
Each serving man, with dish in hand, 
Maich'd boldly up, like our train band, 

Presented, and away.* 

* Sir John Suckling. 

319 



320 THE SKETCH BOOK 

\ 

The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the: 
squire always held his Christmas banquet. A blazing, 
crackling fire of logs had been heaped on to warm th^ 
spacious apartment, and the flame went sparkling and 
wreathing up the wide-mouthed chimney. The greats 
picture of the crusader and his white horse had been 
profusely decorated with greens for the occasion; and 
holly and ivy had likewise been wreathed round the 
helmet and weapons on the opposite wall, which I 
understood were the arms of the same warrior. I 
must own, by the by, I had strong doubts about the 
authenticity of the painting and armor as having 
belonged to the crusader, they certainly having the 
stamp of more recent days; but I was told that the 
painting had been so considered time out of mind ; and 
that, as to the armor, it had been found in a lumber- 
room, and elevated to its present situation by the 
squire, who at once determined it to be the armor of 
the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on 
all such subjects in his own household, the matter had 
passed into current acceptation. A sideboard was set 
out just under this chivalric trophy, on which was a 
display of plate that might have vied (at least in 
variety) with Belshazzar's parade of the vessels ^ of the 
temple: "flagons, cans, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, 
and ewers ' ' ; the gorgeous utensils of good companion- 
ship that had gradually accumulated through many 
generations of jovial housekeepers. Before these 
stood the two Yule candles, beaming like two stars of 
the first magnitude; other lights were distributed in 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 321 

Dranches, and the whole array gHttered like a firma- 
nent of silver. 

We were ushered into this banqueting scene with the 
lound of minstrelsy, the old harper being seated on a 
;tool beside the fireplace, and twanging his instrument 
vith a vast deal more power than melody. Never did 
Christmas board display a more goodly and gracious 
-ssemblage of countenances ; those who were not hand- 
ome were, at least, happy; and happiness is a rare 
mprover of your hard-favored visage. I always con- 
ider an old English family as well worth studying as a 
ollection of Holbein's portraits or Albert Diirer's^ 
)rints. There is much antiquarian lore to be acquired ; 
auch knowledge of the physiognomies of former times, 
^erhaps it may be from having continually before their 
yes those rows of old family portraits, with which the 
lansions of this country are stocked; certain it is, that 
he quaint features of antiquity are often most faith- 
ally perpetuated in these ancient lines; and I have 
raced an old family nose through a whole picture 
allery, legitimately handed down from generation to 
eneration, almost from the time of the Conquest, 
omething of the kind was to be observed in the 
'•orthy company around me. Many of their faces 
ad evidently originated in a Gothic age, and been 
lerely copied by succeeding generations; and there 
'as one little girl in particular, of staid demeanor, 
ith a high Roman nose, and an antique vinegar 
spect, who was a great favorite of the squire's, being, 
3 he said, a Bracebridge all over, and the very 



21 



322 THE SKETCH BOOK 






counterpart of one of his ancestors who figured in th^i 
court of Henry VIII. 

The parson said grace, which was not a short 
familiar one, such as is commonly addressed to the 
Deity in these unceremonious days; but a long^ 
courtly, well- worded one of the ancient school. There 
was now a pause, as if something was expected; when 
suddenly the butler entered the hall with some degree 
of bustle: he was attended by a servant on each side 
with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish, on whicl| 
was an enormous pig's head, decorated with rosemary;- 
with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed withl 
great formality at the head of the table. The moment 
this pageant made its appearance, the harper struck up] 
a flourish; at the conclusion of which the youn^j 
Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the squire, gave} 
with an air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, th0 
first verse of which was as follows: 

Caput apri defero 

Reddens laudes Domino. 
The boar's head in hand bring I, 
With garlands gay and rosemary. 
I pray you all synge merrily 
Qui estis in convivio. 

Though prepared to witness many of these littll 

eccentricities, from being apprised of the peculiaii 

hobby of mine host; yet, I confess, the parade with] 

which so odd a dish was introduced somewhat per< 

texed me, until I gathered from the conversation ol 

r.-^ squire and the parson that it was meant to repre- 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 323 

sent the bringing in of the boar's head ^ ; a dish formerly 
served up with much ceremony and the sound of 
minstrelsy and song, at great tables, on Christmas day. 
"I like the old custom," said the squire, "not merely 
because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but because 
it was observed at the college at Oxford at which I was 
educated. When I hear the old song chanted, it 
brings to mind the time when I was young and game- 
some — and the noble old college hall — and my fellow- 
students loitering about in their black gowns ; many of 
whom, poor lads, are now in their graves!" 

The parson, however, whose mind was not haunted 
by such associations, and who was always more taken 
up with the text than the sentiment, objected to the 
Oxonian's version of the carol ; which he affirmed was 
different from that sung at college. He went on, with 
the dry perseverance of a commentator, to give the 
college reading, accompanied by sundry annotations; 
addressing himself at first to the company at large ; but 
finding their attention gradually diverted to other 
talk and other objects, he lowered his tone as his num- 
ber of auditors diminished, until he concluded his 
remarks in an under voice, to a fat-headed old gentle- 
man next him, who was silently engaged in the dis- 
cussion of a huge plateful of turkey. * 

* The old ceremony of serving up the boar's head on Christmas 
day is still observed in the hall of Queen's College, Oxford. I was 
favored by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and 
as it may be acceptable to such of my readers as are curious in 
these grave and learned matters, I give it entire. 



324 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The table was literally loaded with good cheer, andl 
presented an epitome of country abundance, in this 
season of overflowing larders. A distinguished post 
was allotted to "ancient sirloin," as mine host termed 
it; being, as he added, "the standard of old EngHsh 
hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of 
expectation." There were several dishes quaintly 
decorated, and which had evidently something tradi- 
tional in their embellishments; but about which, as 
I did not like to appear over-curious, I asked no 
questions. 

I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently 
decorated with peacock's feathers, in imitation of the 
tail of that bird, which overshadowed a considerable 

The boar's head in hand bear I, 
Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary; 
And I pray you, my masters, be merry 
Quot estis in convivio. 
Caput apri defero, 
Reddens laudes domino. 

The boar's head, as I understand, 
Is the rarest dish in all this land, 
Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland 

Let us servire cantico. 
Caput apri defero, etc. 



Our steward hath provided this 
In honor of the King of Bliss, 
Which on this day to be served is 
In Reginensi Atrio. 
Caput apri defero, 
etc., etc., etc. 



I 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 325 

tract of the table. This, the squire confessed, with 
some little hesitation, was a pheasant pie, though a 
peacock pie was certainly the most authentical; but 
there had been such a mortality among the peacocks 
this season that he could not prevail upon himself to 
have one killed.* 

It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, 
who may not have that foolish fondness for odd and 
obsolete things to which I am a little given, were I to 
mention the other makeshifts of this worthy old 
humorist, by which he was endeavoring to follow up, 
though at humble distance, the quaint customs of 
antiquity. I was pleased, however, to see the respect 
shown to his whims by his children and relatives; who, 
indeed, entered readily into the full spirit of them, and 
seemed all well versed in their parts ; having doubtless 

* The peacock was anciently in great demand for stately enter- 
tainments. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of 
which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with 
the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed. Such 
pies were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when 
knights-errant pledged themselves to undertake any perilous 
^ enterprise, whence came the ancient oath, used by Justice Shallow, 
''by cock and pie." 

The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast; 
and Massinger, in his City Madam, gives some idea of the extrava- 
gance with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for 
the gorgeous revels of the olden times: — 

"Men may talk of Country Christmasses, 

"Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues; 

"Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; the carcases ->f three 
fat wethers bruised jor gravy to make sauce jor a single peacock.'' 



326 THE SKETCH BOOK 

been present at many a rehearsal. I was amused, too, , 
at the air of profound gravity with which the butleri 
and other servants executed the duties assigned them, \ 
however eccentric. They had an old-fashioned look; 
having, for the most part, been brought up in the^ 
household, and grown into keeping with the antiquated 
mansion, and the humors of its lord; and most prob- 
ably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the'? 
established laws of honorable housekeeping. 

When the cloth was removed, the butler brought in 
a huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, 
which he placed before the squire. Its appearance 
was hailed with acclamation; being the Wassail Bowl 
so renowned in Christmas festivity. The contents had 
been prepared by the squire himself; for it was 
beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly 
prided himself: alleging that it was too abstruse and 
complex for the comprehension of an ordinary servant. 
It was a potation, indeed, that might well make the 
heart of a toper leap within him; being composed of 
the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweet 
ened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.' 

The old gentleman's whole countenance beamed 
with a serene look of indwelling deHght, as he stirred 

* The Wassail Bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of 
wine; with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in 
this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old 
families, and round the hearths of substantial farmers at Christ 
mas. It is also called Lamb's Wool, and is celebrated by Herrick 
in his "Twelfth Night": 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 327 

this mighty bowl. Having raised it to his Hps, with a 
hearty wish of a merry Christmas to all present, he 
sent it brimming round the board, for every one to 
follow his example, according to the primitive style; 
pronouncing it "the ancient fountain of good feeling, 
where all hearts met together."* 

There was much laughing and rallying as the honest 
emblem of Christmas joviality circulated, and was 
kissed rather coyly by the ladies. When it reached 
Master Simon, he raised it in both hands, and with the 
air of a boon companion struck up an old Wassail 
chanson. 

The brown bowle, 

The merry brown bowle, 

As it goes round about-a, 

Fill 

Still, 
Let the world say what it will, 
And drink your fill all out-a. 



Next crowne the bowle full 

With gentle Lamb's Wool; 
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger 

With store of ale too; 

And thus ye must doe 
To make the Wassaile a swinger. 

*"The custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to 
each having his cup. When the steward came to the doore with 
the Wassel, he was to cry three times, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and 
then the chappell (chaplein) was to answer with a song. " — Arch- 
(j^ologia. 



328 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The deep canne, 

The merry deep canne, 

As thou dost freely quaff-a, 

Sing 

Fling, 

Be as merry as a king, | 

And sound a lusty laugh-a.* 

Much of the conversation during dinner turned upon r 
family topics, to which I was a stranger. There was, , 
however, a great deal of rallying of Master Simon 
about some gay widow, with whom he was accused of 
having a flirtation. This attack was commenced by 
the ladies ; but it was continued throughout the dinner 
by the fat-headed old gentleman next the parson, with 
the persevering assiduity of a slow hound ; being one of 
those long-winded jokers, who, though rather dull at 
starting game, are unrivalled for their talents in hunt- 
ing it down. At every pause in the general conversa- 
tion, he renewed his bantering in prett}^ much the same 
terms; winking hard at me with both eyes, whenever 
he gave Master Simon what he considered a home 
thrust. The latter, indeed, seemed fond of being 
teased on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to be; 
and he took occasion to inform me, in an undertone, 
that the lady in question was a prodigiously fine 
woman, and drove her own curricle. 

The dinner-time passed away in this flow of innocent 
hilarity, and, though the old hall may have resounded 
in its time with many a scene of broader rout and revel, 

* From Poor Robin s Almanac. 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 329 

yet I doubt whether it ever witnessed more honest and 
genuine enjoyment. How easy it is for one benevolent 
being to diffuse pleasure around him ; and how truly is a 
kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in 
its vicinity to freshen into smiles ! The joyous disposi- 
tion of the worthy squire was perfectly contagious; he 
was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world 
happy; and the Httle eccentricities of his humor did but 
season, in a manner, the sweetness of his philanthropy. 

When the ladies had retired, the conversation, as 
usual, became still more animated; many good things 
were broached which had been thought of during 
dinner, but which would not exactly do for a lady's ear; 
and though I cannot positively affirm that there was 
much wit uttered, yet I have certainly heard many 
contests of rare wit produce much less laughter. Wit, 
after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and 
much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good 
humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and 
there is no jovial companionship equal to that where 
the jokes are rather small, and the laughter abundant. 

The squire told several long stories of early college 
pranks and adventures, in some of which the parson 
had been a sharer; though in looking at the latter, it 
required some effort of imagination to figure such a 
little dark anatomy of a man into the perpetrator of a 
madcap gambol. Indeed, the two college chums 
presented pictures of what men may be made by their 
different lots in Hfe. The squire had left the univer- 
sity to live lustily on his paternal domains, in the 



330 THE SKETCH BOOK 

vigorous enjoyment of prosperity and sunshine, and 
had flourished on to a hearty and florid old age; 
whilst the poor parson, on the contrary, had dried and 
withered away, among dusty tomes, in the silence and 
shadows of his study. Still there seemed to be a spark 
of almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmering in the 
bottom of his soul; and as the squire hinted at a sly 
story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom they 
once met on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman 
made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could 
decipher his physiognomy, I verily believe was 
indicative of laughter; — indeed, I have rarely met 
with an old gentleman that took absolute offence at 
the imputed gallantries of his youth. 

I found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on 
the dry land of sober judgment. The company grew 
merrier and louder as their jokes grew duller. Master 
Simon was in as chirping a humor as a grasshopper 
filled with dew ; his old songs grew of a warmer com- 
plexion, and he began to talk maudlin about the 
widow. He even gave a long song about the wooing of 
a widow, which he informed me he had gathered from 
an excellent black-letter work, entitled Cupid's 
Solicitor for Love, containing store of good advice 
for bachelors, and which he promised to lend me : the 
first verse was to this effect: 

He that will woo a widow must not dally, 
He must make hay while the sun doth shine; 

He must not stand with her, shall I, shall I, 
But boldly say Widow, thou must be mine. 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 331 

This song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, 
who made several attempts to tell a rather broad story 
out of Joe Miller/ that was pat to the purpose; but he 
always stuck in the middle, everybody recollecting the 
latter part excepting himself. The parson, too, began 
to show the effects of good cheer, having gradually 
settled down into a doze, and his wig sitting most 
suspiciously on one side. Just at this juncture we 
were summoned to the drawing-room, and, I suspect, 
at the private instigation of mine host, whose jovi- 
ality seemed always tempered with a proper love of 
decorum. 

After the dinner table was removed, the hall was 
given up to the younger members of the family, who, 
prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the Oxonian 
and Master Simon, made its old walls ring with their 
merriment, as they played at romping games. I 
deHght in witnessing the gambols of children, and 
particularly at this happy hoHday season, and could 
not help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing 
one of their peals of laughter. I found them at the 
game of blindman's-buff. Master Simon, who was 
the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions 
to fulfil the office of that ancient potentate, the Lord of 
Misrule,* was blinded in the midst of the hall. The 
little beings were as busy about him as the mock 

* At Christmasse there was in the Kinge's house, wheresoever 
hee was lodged, a lorde of misrule, or mayster of merie disportes, 
and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honor, or 
good worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall. — Stowe. 



332 THE SKETCH BOOK 

fairies about Falstaff^; pinching him, plucking at the 
skirts of his coat, and tickhng him with straws. One 
fine blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her flaxen 
hair all in beautiful confusion, her frolic face in a glow, 
her frock half torn off her shoulders, a complete 
picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and, from 
the slyness with which Master Simon avoided the 
smaller game, and hemmed this wild little nymph in 
corners, and obHged her to jump shrieking over chairs, 
I suspected the rogue of being not a whit more blinded 
than was convenient. 

When I returned to the drawing-room, I found the 
company seated round the fire, listening to the parson, 
who was deeply ensconced in a high-backed oaken 
chair, the work of some cunning artificer of yore, 
which had been brought from the library for his par- 
ticular accommodation. From this venerable piece of 
furniture, with which his shadowy figure and dark 
weazen face so admirably accorded, he was dealing out 
strange accounts of the popular superstitions and 
legends of the surrounding country, with which he had 
become acquainted in the course of his antiquarian 
researches. I am half inclined to think that the old 
gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with 
superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a 
recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the 
country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so often 
filled with the marvellous and supernatural. He gave 
us several anecdotes of the fancies of the neighboring 
peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader, which 



i 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 333 

lay on the tomb by the church altar. As it was the 
only monument of the kind in that part of the country, 
it had always been regarded with feelings of supersti- 
tion by the good wives of the village. It was said to 
get up from the tomb and walk the rounds of the 
church-yard in stormy nights, particularly when it 
thundered; and one old woman, whose cottage 
bordered on the church-yard, had seen it through the 
windows of the church, when the moon shone, slowly 
pacing up and down the aisles. It was the belief that 
some wrong had been left unredressed by the deceased, 
or some treasure hidden, which kept the spirit in a 
state of trouble and restlessness. Some talked of gold 
and jewels buried in the tomb, over which the spectre 
kept watch ; and there was a story current of a sexton 
in old times, who endeavored to break his way to the 
cofhn at night, but, just as he reached it, received a 
violent blow from the marble hand of the effigy, which 
stretched him senseless on the pavement. These tales 
were often laughed at by some of the sturdier among 
the rustics, yet, when night came on, there were many 
of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of venturing 
alone in the footpath that led across the church-yard. 
From these and other anecdotes that followed, the 
crusader appeared to be the favorite hero of ghost 
stories throughout the vicinity. His picture, which 
hung up in the hall, was thought by the servants to 
have something supernatural about it; for they 
remarked that, in whatever part of the hall you went, 
the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on you. The 



334 THE SKETCH BOOK 

old porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born 
and brought up in the family, and was a great gossip 
among the maid servants, affirmed, that in her young 
days she had often heard say, that on Midsummer eve, 
when it was well known all kinds of ghosts, goblins, 
and fairies become visible and walk abroad, the 
crusader used to mount his horse, come down from his 
picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, and so 
to the church to visit the tomb ; on which occasion the 
church door most civilly swung open of itself ; not that 
he needed it ; for he rode through closed gates and even 
stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairy 
maids to pass between two bars of the great park gate, 
making himself as thin as a sheet of paper. 

All these superstitions I found had been very much 
countenanced by the squire, who, though not supersti- 
tious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. He 
listened to every goblin tale of the neighboring gossips 
with infinite gravity, and held the porter's wife in high 
favor on account of her talent for the marvellous. 
He was himself a great reader of old legends and 
romances, and often lamented that he could not 
believe in them, for a superstitious person, he thought, 
must live in a kind of fairy land. 

Whilst we were all attention to the parson's stories, 
our ears were suddenly assailed by a burst of hetero- 
geneous sounds from the hall, in which were mingled 
something like the clang of rude minstrelsy, with the 
uproar of many small voices and girlish laughter. 
The door suddenly flew open, and a train came troop- 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 335 

ing into the room, that might almost have been mis- 
taken for the breaking up of the court of Fairy. That 
indefatigable spirit, Master Simon, in the faithful 
discharge of his duties as lord of misrule, had conceived 
the idea of a Christmas mummery or masking; and 
having called in to his assistance the Oxonian and the 
young officer, who were equally ripe for anything that 
should occasion romping and merriment, they had 
carried it into instant effect. The old housekeeper 
had been consulted ; the antique clothes-presses and 
wardrobes rummaged, and made to yield up the reHcs 
of finery that had not seen the light for several 
generations; the younger part of the company had 
been privately convened from the parlor and hall, and 
the whole had been bedizened out, into a burlesque 
imitation of an antique mask.* 

Master Simon led the van, as "Ancient Christmas, "^ 
quaintly apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had 
very much the aspect of one of the old housekeeper's 
petticoats, and a hat that might have served for a 
village steeple, and must indubitably have figured in 
the days of the Covenanters. From under this his 
nose curved boldly forth, flushed with a frost-bitten 
bloom, that seemed the very trophy of a December 
blast. He was accompanied by the blue-eyed romp, 

* Maskings or mummeries were favorite sports at Christmas 
in old times; and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were 
often laid under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic 
disguisings. I strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken 
the idea of his from Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas. 



336 THE SKETCH BOOK 

dished up as "Dame Mince Pie," in the venerable 
magnificence of a faded brocade, long stomacher, 
peaked hat, and high-heeled shoes. The young officer 
appeared as Robin Hood, in a sporting dress of Kendal 
green, and a foraging cap with a gold tassel. 

The costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony to 
deep research, and there was an evident eye to the pic- 
turesque, natural to a young gallant in the presence of 
his mistress. The fair Julia hung on his arm in a 
pretty rustic dress, as "Maid Marian." The rest of 
the train had been metamorphosed in various ways; 
the girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient belles of 
the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered 
with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, 
hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent 
the character of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other 
worthies celebrated in ancient maskings. The whole 
was under the control of the Oxonian, in the appro- 
priate character of Misrule; and I observed that he 
exercised rather a mischievous sway with his wand 
over the smallest personages of the pageant. 

The irruption of this motley crew, with beat of 
drum, according to ancient custom, was the consum- 
mation of uproar and merriment. Master Simon 
covered himself with glory by the stateliness with 
which, as Ancient Christmas, he walked a minuet with 
the peerless, though giggling, Dame Mince Pie. It 
was followed by a dance of all the characters, which 
from its medley of costumes, seemed as though the old 
family portraits had skipped down from their frames 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 2>37 

to join in the sport. Different centuries were figuring 
at cross hands and right and left; the dark ages were 
cutting pirouettes and rigadoons; and the days of 
Queen Bess jigging merrily down the middle, through 
a line of succeeding generations. 

The worthy squire contemplated these fantastic 
sports, and this resurrection of his old wardrobe, with 
the simple relish of childish delight. He stood 
chuckling and rubbing his hands, and scarcely hearing 
a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the 
latter was discoursing most authentically on the 
ancient and stately dance at the Paon, or peacock, 
from which he conceived the minuet to be derived.* 
For my part, I was in a continual excitement from the 
varied scenes of whim and innocent gayety passing 
before me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic 
and warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from 
among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age 
throwing off his apathy, and catching once more the 
freshness of youthful enjoyment. I felt also an inter- 
est in the scene, from the consideration that these 
fleeting customs were posting fast into oblivion, and 
that this was, perhaps, the only family in England in 
which the whole of them was still punctiliously 

* Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon, 
from pavo, a peacock, says: " It is a grave and majestic dance; the 
method of dancing it anciently was by gentlemen dressed with 
caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by the 
peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, 
the motion whereof, in dancing, resembles that of a peacock. " — 
History of Music. 



338 THE SKETCH BOOK \ 

observed. There was a quaintness, too, mingled withl: 
all this revelry, that gave it a peculiar zest: it wasil 
suited to the time and place; and as the old manor-' 
house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed 
echoing back the joviality of long departed years. *^ 

But enough of Christmas and its gambols ; it is time: 
for me to pause in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the 
questions asked by my graver readers, "To what pur- 
pose is all this — how is the world to be made wiser by 
this talk?" Alas! is there not wisdom enough extant 
for the instruction of the world? And if not, are there 
not thousands of abler pens laboring for its improve- 
ment? It is so much pleasanter to please than to 
instruct — to play the companion rather than the 
preceptor. 

What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could l] 
throw into the mass of knowledge; or how am I sure 
that my sagest deductions may be safe guides for the 
opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail, 
the only evil is in my own disappointment. If, 
however, I can by any lucky chance, in these daj^s of 
evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or 
beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow ; if I 

* At the time of the first publication of this paper, the picture 
of an old-fashioned Christmas in the country was pronounced by 
some as out of date. The author had afterwards an opportunity 
of witnessing almost all the customs above described, existing in 
unexpected vigor in the skirts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, where 
he passed the Christmas holidays. The reader will find some 
notice of them in the author's account of his sojourn at Newstead; 
Abbey. 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 339 

can now and then penetrate through the gathering 
film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of 
human nature, and make my reader more in good 
humor with his fellow beings and himself, surely, 
surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain. 



LONDON ANTIQUES 

1 do walk 

Methinks like Guido Vaux, with my dark lanthom, 
Stealing to set the town o' fire; i' th' country 
I should be taken for William o' the Wisp, 
Or Robin Goodfellow. 

Fletcher. 

I AM somewhat of an antiquity hunter, and am fond 
of exploring London in quest of the relics of old times. 
These are principally to be found in the depths of the 
city, swallowed up and almost lost in a wilderness of 
brick and mortar; but deriving poetical and romantic 
interest from the commonplace prosaic world around 
them. I was struck with an instance of the kind in the 
course of a recent summer ramble into the city ; for the 
city is only to be explored to advantage in summer 
time, when free from the smoke and fog, and rain and 
mud of winter. I had been buffeting for some time 
against the current of population setting through 
Fleet Street. The warm weather had unstrung my 
nerves, and made me sensitive to every jar and jostle 
and discordant sound. The flesh was weary, the 
spirit faint, and I was getting out of humor with the 
bustHng busy throng through which I had to struggle, 
when in a fit of desperation I tore my way through the 
crowd, plunged into a by lane, and, after passing 

340 



LONDON ANTIQUES 341 

through several obscure nooks and angles, emerged 
into a quaint and quiet court with a grass-plot in the 
centre, overhung by elms, and kept perpetually fresh 
and green by a fountain with its sparkling jet of water. 
A student with book in hand was seated on a stone 
bench, partly reading, partly meditating on the move- 
ments of two or three trim nursery maids with their 
infant charges. 

I was like an Arab, who had suddenly come upon an 
oasis amid the panting sterility of the desert. By 
degrees the quiet and coolness of the place soothed my 
nerves and refreshed my spirit. I pursued my walk, 
and came, hard by, to a very ancient chapel, with a 
low-browed Saxon portal of massive and rich archi- 
tecture. The interior was circular and lofty, and 
lighted from above. Around were monumental tombs 
of ancient date, on which were extended the marble 
effigies of warriors in armor. Some had the hands 
devoutly crossed upon the breast; others grasped the 
pommel of the sword, menacing hostihty even in the 
tomb! — while the crossed legs of several indicated 
soldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades to the 
Holy Land. 

I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars,^ 
strangely situated in the very centre of sordid traffic; 
and I do not know a more impressive lesson for the 
man of the world than thus suddenly to turn aside 
from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sit 
down among these shadowy sepulchres, where all is 
twilight, dust, and forgetfulness. 



342 THE SKETCH BOOK 

In a subsequent tour of observation, I encounterec 
another of these rehcs of a ''foregone world " locked up 
in the heart of the city. I had been wandering foi 
some time through dull monotonous streets, destitute 
of anything to strike the eye or excite the imagination, 
when I beheld before me a Gothic gateway of moulder- 
ing antiquity. It opened into a spacious quadrangle 
forming the court-yard of a stately Gothic pile, the 
portal of which stood invitingly open. 

It was apparently a public edifice, and as I was an- 
tiquity hunting, I ventured in, though with dubious 
steps. Meeting no one either to oppose or rebuke my 
intrusion, I continued on until I found myself in 
great hall, with a lofty arched roof and oaken gallery, 
all of Gothic architecture. At one end of the hall was 
an enormous fireplace, with wooden settles on each 
side; at the other end was a raised platform, or dais, 
the seat of state, above which was the portrait of a man 
in antique garb, with a long robe, a ruff, and a vener- 
able gray beard. 

The whole establishment had an air of monastic 
quiet and seclusion, and what gave it a mysterious 
charm was, that I had not met with a human being 
since I had passed the threshold. 

Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a 
recess of a large bow window, which admitted a broad 
flood of yellow sunshine, checkered here and there by 
tints from panes of colored glass; while an open case- 
ment let in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my 
head on my hand, and my arm on an old oaken table, 



LONDON ANTIQUES 343 

I indulged in a sort of reverie about what might have 
been the ancient uses of this edifice. It had evidently 
been of monastic origin ; perhaps one of those collegiate 
establishments built of yore for the promotion of 
learning, where the patient monk, in the ample soli- 
tude of the cloister, added page to page and volume to 
volume, emulating in the productions of his brain the 
magnitude of the pile he inhabited. 

As I was seated in this musing mood, a small 
panelled door in an arch at the upper end of the hall 
was opened, and a number of gray-headed old men, 
clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one; pro- 
ceeding in that manner through the hall, without 
uttering a word, each turning a pale face on me as he 
passed, and disappearing through a door at the lower 
end. 

I was singularly struck with their appearance ; their 
black cloaks and antiquated air comported with the 
style of this most venerable and mysterious pile. It 
was as if the ghosts of the departed years, about which 
I had been musing, were passing in review before me. 
Pleasing myself with such fancies, I set out, in the 
spirit of romance, to explore what I pictured to myself 
a realm of shadows, existing in the very centre of sub- 
stantial realities. 

My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior 
courts, and corridors, and dilapidated cloisters, for the 
main edifice had many additions and dependencies, 
built at various times and in various styles; in one 
open space a number of boys, who evidently belonged 



344 THE SKETCH BOOK 

to the establishment, were at their sports; but every-] 
where I observed those mysterious old gray men in 
black mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, some- 
times conversing in groups; they appeared to be the 
pervading genii of the place. I now called to mind 
what I had read of certain colleges in old times, where 
judicial astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and other 
forbidden and magical sciences were taught. Was this 
an establishment of the kind, and were these black- 
cloaked old men really professors of the black art? 

These surmises were passing through my mind as my 
eye glanced into a chamber, hung round with all kinds 
of strange and uncouth objects; implements of savage 
warfare; strange idols and stuffed alligators; bottled 
serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece; 
while on the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead 
grinned a human skull, flanked on each side by a dried 
cat. 

I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic 
chamber, which seemed a fitting laboratory for a necro- 
mancer, when I was startled at beholding a human 
countenance staring at me from a dusky corner. It 
was that of a small, shrivelled old man, with thin 
cheeks, bright eyes, and gray wiry projecting eye- 
brows. I at first doubted whether it were not a 
mummy curiously preserved, but it moved, and I saw 
that it was alive. It was another of those black- 
cloaked old men, and, as I regarded his quaint 
physiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the hideous and 
sinister objects by which he was surrounded, I began 



LONDON ANTIQUES 345 

to persuade myself that I had come upon the arch 
mago, who ruled over this magical fraternity. 

Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and 
invited me to enter. I obeyed, with singular hardi- 
hood, for how did I know whether a wave of his wand 
might not metamorphose me into some strange mon- 
ster, or conjure me into one of the bottles on his 
mantelpiece? He proved, however, to be anything but 
a conjurer, and his simple garrulity soon dispelled all 
the magic and mystery with which I had enveloped this 
antiquated pile and its no less antiquated inhabitants. 

It appeared that I had made my way into the centre 
of an ancient asylum for superannuated tradesmen 
and decayed householders, with which was connected 
a school for a limited number of boys. It was founded 
upwards of two centuries since on an old monastic es- 
tablishment, and retained somewhat of the conventual 
air and character. The shadowy line of old men in 
black mantles who had passed before me in the hall, 
and whom I had elevated into magi, turned out to be 
the pensioners returning from morning service in the 
chapel. 

John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities, whom 
I had made the arch magician, had been for six years a 
resident of the place, and had decorated this final nest- 
ling-place of his old age with relics and rarities picked 
up in the course of his Hfe. According to his own 
account he had been somewhat of a traveller; having 
been once in France, and very near making a visit to 
Holland. He regretted not having visited the latter 



346 THE SKETCH BOOK 

country, *'as then he might have said he had been 
there." — He was evidently a traveller of the simplest 
kind. 

He was aristocratical too in his notions; keeping 
aloof, as I found, from the ordinary run of pensioners. 
His chief associates were a blind man who spoke Latin 
and Greek, of both which languages Hallum was pro- 
foundly ignorant; and a broken-down gentleman who 
had run through a fortune of forty thousand pounds, 
left him by his father, and ten thousand pounds, the 
marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum seemed 
to consider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as 
well as of lofty spirit to be able to squander such 
enormous sums. 

P. S. The picturesque remnant of old times into 
which I have thus beguiled the reader is what is called 
the Charter House, ^ originally the Chartreuse. It was 
founded in i6i i , on the remains of an ancient convent, 
by Sir Thomas Sutton, being one of those noble chari- 
ties set on foot by individual munificence, and kept up 
with the quaintness and sanctity of ancient times 
amidst the modern changes and innovations of Lon- 
don. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seen 
better days, are provided, in their old age, with food, 
clothing, fuel, and a yearly allowance for private 
expenses. They dine together, as did the monks of 
old, in the hall which had been the refectory of the 
original convent. Attached to the establishment is a 
school for forty-four boys. 



LONDON ANTIQUES 2>A7 

Stow, whose work I have consulted on the subject, 
speaking of the obHgations of the gray-headed pension- 
ers, says: "They are not to intermeddle with any busi- 
ness touching the affairs of the hospital, but to attend 
only to the service of God, and take thankfully what is 
provided for them, without muttering, murmuring, or 
grudging. None to wear weapon, long hair, colored 
boots, spurs or colored shoes, feathers in their hats, or 
any ruffian-like or unseemly apparel, but such as be- 
comes hospital men to wear." "And in truth," adds 
Stow, "happy are they that are so taken from the 
cares and sorrows of the world, and fixed in so good a 
place as these old men are, having nothing to care for, 
but the good of their souls, to serve God and to live in 
brotherly love." 

For the amusement of such as have been interested 
by the preceding sketch, taken down from my own 
observation, and who may wish to know a little more 
about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum 
of local history, put into my hands by an odd-looking 
old gentleman in a small brown wig and a snuff-colored 
coat, with whom I became acquainted shortly after my 
visit to the Charter House. I confess I was a Httle 
dubious at first, whether it was not one of those 
apocryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring 
travellers like myself; and which have brought our 
general character for veracity into such unmerited 
reproach. On making proper inquiries, however, I 
have received the most satisfactory assurances of the 



348 THE SKETCH BOOK 

author's probity; and, indeed, have been told that he] 
is actually engaged in a full and particular account of 
the very interesting region in which he resides; of 
which the following may be considered merely as a 
foretaste. 



LITTLE BRITAIN 



What I write is most true ... I have a whole booke of cases 
lying by me which if I should sette foorth, some grave auntients 
(within the hearing of Bow bell) would be out of charity with me. 

Nashe. 



In the centre of the great city of London lies a small 
neighborhood, consisting of a cluster of narrow streets 
and courts, of very venerable and debilitated houses, 
which goes by the name of Little Britain. Christ 
Church School and St. Bartholomew's Hospital bound 
j it on the west ; Smithfield and Long Lane on the north ; 
Aldersgate Street, like an arm of the sea, divides it 
from the eastern part of the city ; whilst the yawning 
gulf of BuU-and- Mouth Street separates it from 
Butcher Lane, and the regions of Newgate. Over 
this little territory, thus bounded and designated, the 
great dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the interven- 
ing houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and 
Ave Maria Lane, looks down with an air of motherly 
protection. 

This quarter derives its appellation from having 
been, in ancient times, the residence of the Dukes of 
Brittany.^ As London increased, however, rank and 
fashion rolled off to the west, and trade, creeping on at 
their heels, took possession of their deserted abodes. 
For some time Little Britain became the great mart of 

349 



350 THE SKETCH BOOK 






learning, and was peopled by the busy and prolific race 5' 
of booksellers; these also gradually deserted it, and, 
emigrating beyond the great strait of Newgate Street, 
settled down in Paternoster Row and St. Paul's. 
Church- Yard, where they continue to increase andl 
multiply even at the present day. j 

But though thus fallen into decline. Little Britain i 
still bears traces of its former splendor. There are ' 
several houses ready to tumble down, the fronts of 
which are magnificently enriched with old oaken carv- 
ings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and 
fishes : and fruits and flowers which it would perplex a 
naturalist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate 
Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and 
lordly mansions, but which have in latter days been 
subdivided into several tenements. Here may often 
be found the family of a petty tradesman, with its 
trumpery furniture, burrowing among the relics of 
antiquated finery, in great rambling time-stained 
apartments, with fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and: 
enormous marble fireplaces. The lanes and courts 
also contain many smaller houses, not on so grand a 
scale, but, like your small ancient gentry, sturdily 
maintaining their claims to equal antiquity. These 
have their gable ends to the street ; great bow windows 
with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings 
and low arched door- ways.* \ 

* It is evident that the author of this interesting communicatioi] 
has included, in his general title of Little Britain, many of those 
little lanes and courts that belong immediately to Cloth Fair. 



LITTLE BRITAIN 351 

In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have 
I passed several quiet years of existence, comfortably 
lodged in the second floor of one of the smallest but 
oldest edifices. My sitting-room is an old wainscoted 
chamber, with small panels, and set off with a miscel- 
laneous array of furniture. I have a particular respect 
for three or four high-backed claw-footed chairs, 
covered with tarnished brocade, which bear the marks 
of having seen better days, and have doubtless figured 
in some of the old palaces of Little Britain. They 
seem to me to keep together, and to look down with 
sovereign contempt upon their leathern-bottomed 
neighbors ; as I have seen decayed gentry carry a high 
head among the plebeian society with which they 
were reduced to associate. The whole front of my 
sitting-room is taken up with a bow window; on the 
panes of which are recorded the names of previous 
occupants for many generations, mingled with scraps 
of very indifferent gentleman-like poetry, written in 
characters which I can scarcely decipher, and which 
extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain, 
who has long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed 
away. As I am an idle personage, with no apparent 
occupation, and pay my bill regularly every week, I am 
looked upon as the only independent gentleman of the 
neighborhood; and, being curious to learn the internal 
state of a community so apparently shut up within 
itself, I have managed to work my way into all the 
concerns and secrets of the place. 

Little Britain may truly be called the heart's core of 



352 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the city; the stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a 
fragment of London as it was in its better days, with 
its antiquated folks and fashions. Here flourish in 
great preservation many of the holiday games and 
customs of yore. The inhabitants most religiously eat 
pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, ^ hot-cross buns on Good 
Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send 
love-letters on Valentine's Day, burn the pope on the 
fifth of November, and kiss all the girls under the 
mistletoe at Christmas. Roast beef and plum- 
pudding are also held in superstitious veneration, and 
port and sherry maintain their grounds as the only 
true English wines; all others being considered vile 
outlandish beverages. 

Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, 
which its inhabitants consider the wonders of the 
world; such as the great bell of St. Paul's, which sourS' 
all the beer when it tolls; the figures that strike the 
hours at St. Dunstan's clock; the Monument; the lions 
in the Tower :^ and the wooden giants^ in Guildhall. 
They still believe in dreams and fortune- telling, and an: 
old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth Street makes' 
a tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods, and 
promising the girls good husbands. They are apt to 
be rendered uncomfortable by comets and eclipses; 
and if a dog howls dolefully at night, it is looked upon 
as a sure sign of a death in the place. There are even 
many ghost stories current, particularly concerning 
the old mansion-houses; in several of which it is said 
strange sights are sometimes seen. Lords and ladies,' 



LITTLE BRITAIN 353 

the former in full-bottomed wigs, hanging sleeves, and 
swords, the latter in lappets, stays, hoops, and brocade, 
have been seen walking up and down the great waste 
chambers, on moonlight nights; and are supposed to be 
the shades of the ancient proprietors in their court- 
dresses. 

Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. 
One of the most important of the former is a tall, dry- 
old gentleman, of the name of Skryme, who keeps a 
small apothecary's shop. He has a cadaverous 
countenance, full of cavities and projections; with a 
brown circle round each eye, like a pair of horn spec- 
tacles. He is much thought of by the old women, 
who consider him as a kind of conjurer, because he has 
two or three stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop, 
and several snakes in bottles. He is a great reader of 
almanacs and newspapers, and is much given to pore 
over alarming accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires, 
earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; which last 
phenomena he considers as signs of the times. He has 
always some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to his 
customers, with their doses; and thus at the same 
time puts both soul and body into an uproar. He is a 
great believer in omens and predictions; and has the 
prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother Shipton^ by 
heart. No man can make so much out of an eclipse, 
or even an unusually dark day ; and he shook the tail of 
the last comet over the heads of his customers and 
disciples until they were nearly frightened out of their 
wits. He has lately got hold of a popular legend or 
23 



354 THE SKETCH BOOK 

prophecy, on which he has been unusually eloquent. 
There has been a saying current among the ancient 
sibyls, who treasure up these things, that when the 
grasshopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands 
with the dragon on the top of Bow Church steeple, 
fearful events would take place. This strange con- 
junction, it seems, has as strangely come to pass. The 
same architect has been engaged lately on the repairs 
of the cupola of the Exchange, and the steeple of Bow 
Church; and, fearful to relate, the dragon and the 
grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jole, in the yard of 
his work-shop* 

"Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, 
"may go star-gazing, and look for conjunctions in the 
heavens, but here is a conjunction on the earth, near 
at home, and under our own eyes, which surpasses all 
the signs and calculations of astrologers." Since 
these portentous weather-cocks have thus laid their 
heads together, wonderful events had already oc- 
curred. The good old king, notwithstanding that he 
had lived eighty-two years, had all at once given up 
the ghost; another king had mounted the throne; a 
royal duke had died suddenly — another, in France, 
had been murdered; there had been radical meetings^ 
in all parts of the kingdom ; the bloody scenes at Man- 
chester;^ the great plot in Cato Street;^ — and, above 
all, the Queen had returned to England! All these 
sinister events are recounted by Mr. Skryme, with a 
mysterious look, and a dismal shake of the head; and 
being taken with his drugs, and associated in the 



LITTLE BRITAIN 355 

minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, 
bottled serpents, and his own visage, which is a title- 
page of tribulation, they have spread great gloom 
through the minds of the people of Little Britain. 
They shake their heads whenever they go by Bow 
Church, and observe that they never expected any 
good to come of taking down that steeple, which in old 
times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of 
Whittington and his Cat^ bears witness. 

The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial 
cheese-monger, who lives in a fragment of one of the 
old family mansions, and is as magnificently lodged as 
a round-bellied mite in the midst of one of his own 
Cheshires. Indeed he is a man of no little standing 
and importance; and his renown extends through 
Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto Alder- 
manbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs 
of state, having read the Sunday papers for the last 
half century, together with the Gentleman's Maga- 
zine, Rapin's History of England, and the Naval 
Chronicle. His head is stored with invaluable 
maxims which have borne the test of time and use for 
centuries. It is his firm opinion that "it is a moral 
impossible, " so long as England is true to herself, that 
anything can shake her : and he has much to say on the 
subject of the national debt; which, somehow or other, 
he proves to be a great national bulwark and blessing. 
He passed the greater part of his life in the purlieus of 
Little Britain, until of late years, when, having become 
rich, and grown into the dignity of a Sunday cane, he 



356 THE SKETCH BOOK 

begins to take his pleasure and see the world. He has 
therefore made several excursions to Hampstead, 
Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has 
passed whole afternoons in looking back upon the 
metropolis through a telescope, and endeavoring to 
descry the steeple of St. Bartholomew's. Not a stage- 
coachman of Bull-and-Mouth Street but touches his 
hat as he passes ; and he is considered quite a patron at 
the coach-office of the Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's 
Churchyard. His family have been very urgent for 
him to make an expedition to Margate, but he has 
great doubts of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, 
and indeed thinks himself too advanced in life to 
undertake sea- voyages. 

Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divi- 
sions, and party spirit ran very high at one time in con- 
sequence of two rival "Burial Societies" being set up 
in the place. One held its meeting at the Swan and 
Horse Shoe, and was patronized by the cheese-monger; 
the other at the Cock and Crown, under the auspices of 
the apothecary : it is needless to say that the latter was 
the most flourishing. I have passed an evening or 
two at each, and have acquired much valuable infor- 
mation, as to the best mode of being buried, the 
comparative merits of churchyards, together with 
divers hints on the subject of patent-iron coffins. I 
have heard the question discussed in all its bearings as 
to the legality of prohibiting the latter on account 
of their durability. The feuds occasioned by these 
societies have happily died of late ; but they were for a 



LITTLE BRITAIN 357 

long time prevailing themes of controversy, the people 
of Little Britain being extremely solicitous of fune- 
real honors and of lying comfortably in their graves. 

Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of 
quite a different cast, which tends to throw the sun- 
shine of good-humor over the whole neighborhood. It 
meets once a week at a little old-fashioned house, kept 
by a jolly publican of the name of Wagstaff, and 
bearing for insignia a resplendent half -moon, with a 
most seductive bunch of grapes. The old edifice is 
covered with inscriptions to catch the eye of the 
thirsty wayfarer; such as "Trueman, Hanbury, and 
Co.'s Entire," "Wine, Rum, and Brandy Vaults," 
*' Old Tom, Rum and Compounds, etc. " This indeed 
has been a temple of Bacchus and Momus from time 
immemorial. It has always been in the family of the 
Wagstaff s, so that its history is tolerably preserved by 
the present landlord. It was much frequented by the 
gallants and cavalieros of the reign of Elizabeth, and 
was looked into now and then by the wits of Charles 
the Second's day. But what Wagstaff principally 
prides himself upon is, that Henry the Eighth, in one 
of his nocturnal rambles, broke the head of one of his 
ancestors with his famous walking-staff. This, how- 
ever, is considered as rather a dubious and vainglorious 
boast of the landlord. 

The club which now holds its weekly sessions here 
goes by the name of "The Roaring Lads of Little 
Britain." They abound in old catches, glees, and 
choice stories, that are traditional in the place, and not 



358 THE SKETCH BOOK 

to be met with in any other part of the metropolis. 
There is a mad-cap undertaker who is inimitable at a 
merry song; but the life of the club, and indeed the 
prime wit of Little Britain, is bully Wagstaff himself. 
His ancestors were all wags before him, and he has 
inherited with the inn a large stock of songs and jokes, 
which go with it from generation to generation as heir- 
looms. He is a dapper little fellow, with bandy legs 
and pot belly, a red face, with a moist merry eye, and a 
little shock of gray hair behind. At the opening of 
every club night he is called in to sing his "Confession 
of Faith, " which is the famous old drinking trowl from 
Gammer Gurton's Needle. He sings it, to be sure, 
with many variations, as he received it from his 
father's Hps ; for it has been a standing favorite at the 
Half-Moon and Bunch of Grapes ever since it was 
written: nay, he affirms that his predecessors have 
often had the honor of singing it before the nobility 
and gentry at Christmas mummeries, when Little 
Britain was in all its glory.* 

* As mine host of the Half-Moon's Confession of Faith may not 
be familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of the 
current songs of Little Britain, I subjoin it in its original orthog- 
raphy. I would observe, that the whole club always join in the 
chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering of 
pewter pots. 

I cannot eate but lytle meate, 
My stomacke is not good, 
^ But sure I thinke that I can drinke 
With him that weares a hood. 



LITTLE BRITAIN 



359 



It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club 
night, the shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, 
and now and then the choral bursts of half a dozen 
discordant voices, which issue from this jovial man- 
sion. At such times the street is lined with listeners, 
who enjoy a delight equal to that of gazing into a 
confectioner's window, or snuffing up the steams of a 
cook-shop. 

There are two annual events which produce great 
stir and sensation in Little Britain; these are St. 
Bartholomew's fair, and the Lord Mayor's day.^ 
During the time of the fair, which is held in the adjoin- 
ing regions of Smithfield, there is nothine going on but 
gossiping and gadding about. The late quiet streets 



Though I go bare, take ye no care, 

I nothing am a colde, 
I stuff my skyn so full within, 

Of joly good ale and olde. 
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, 

Booth foote and hand go colde, 
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe 

Whether it be new or olde. 

I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste, 

And a crab laid in the fyre; 
A little breade shall do me steade, 

Much breade I not desyre. . 
No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe, 

Can hurte mee, if I wolde, 
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt 

Of joly good ale and olde. 
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 



36o 



THE SKETCH BOOK 



of Little Britain are overrun with an irruption of 
strange figures and faces; every tavern is a scene of 
rout and revel. The fiddle and the song are heard 
from the tap-room, morning, noon, and night; and at 
each window may be seen some group of boon com- 
panions, with half -shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe in 
mouth, and tankard in hand, fondling, and prosing, 
and singing maudlin songs over their liquor. Even 
the sober decorum of private families, which I must 
say is rigidly kept up at other times among my neigh- 
bors, is no proof against this Saturnalia. There is no 
such thing as keeping maid-servants within doors. 
Their brains are absolutely set madding with Punch 

And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe, 

Loveth well good ale to seeke, 
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see, 

The teares run downe her cheeke. 
Then doth she trowle to me the bowle. 

Even as a mault-worme sholde, 
And sayth, sweete harte, I tooke my parte 

Of this joly good ale and olde. 
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 



Chorus. 



Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke. 

Even as goode fellowes sholde doe. 
They shall not mysse to have the blisse, 

Good ale doth bring men to; 
And all poore soules that have scowred bowles, 

Or have them lustily trolde, 
God save the lyves of them and their wives, 

Whether they be yonge or olde. 
Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 



LITTLE BRITAIN 361 

and the Puppet Show; the Flying Horses; Signior 
PoHto; the Fire-Eater; the celebrated Mr. Paap; and 
the Irish Giant. The children, too, lavish all their 
holiday money in toys and gilt gingerbread, and fill the 
house with the Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, and 
penny whistles. 

But the Lord Mayor's day is the great anniversary. 
The Lord Mayor is looked up to by the inhabitants of 
Little Britain as the greatest potentate upon earth; 
his gilt coach with six horses as the summit of human 
splendor; and his procession, with all the Sheriffs and 
Aldermen in his train, as the grandest of earthly pag- 
eants. How they exult in the idea, that the King him- 
self dare not enter the city, without first knocking at 
the gate of Temple Bar,^ and asking permission of the 
Lord Mayor: for if he did, heaven and earth! there is 
no knowing what might be the consequence. The 
man in armor who rides before the Lord Mayor, and is 
the city champion, has orders to cut down everybody 
that offends against the dignity of the city; and then 
there is the little man with a velvet porringer on his 
head, who sits at the window of the state coach, and 
holds the city sword, as long as a pike-staff — Odd's 
blood! If he once draws that sword. Majesty itself is 
not safe! 

Under the protection of this mighty potentate, 
therefore, the good people of Little Britain sleep in 
peace. Temple Bar is an effectual barrier against all 
interior foes; and as to foreign invasion, the Lord 
Mayor has but to throw himself into the Tower, call in 



362 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the train bands, and put the standing army of Beef- 
eaters under arms, and he may bid defiance to the 
world ! 

Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own habits,; 
and its own opinions, Little Britain has long flourished 
as a sound heart to this great fungous metropolis. I 
have pleased myself with considering it as a chosen 
spot, where the principles of sturdy John Bullism were 
garnered up, like seed corn, to renew the national 
character, when it had run to waste and degeneracy. 
I have rejoiced also in the general spirit of harmony 
that prevailed throughout it; for though there might 
now and then be a few clashes of opinion between the 
adherents of the cheese-monger and the apothecary, 
and an occasional feud between the burial societies, 
yet these were but transient clouds, and soon passed 
away. The neighbors met with good- will, parted 
with a shake of the hand, and never abused each 
other except behind their backs. 

I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing 
parties at which I have been present ; where we played 
at All-Fours, Pope- Joan, Tom-come- tickle-me, and 
other choice old games; and where we sometimes had 
a good old English country dance to the tune of Sir 
Roger de Coverley. Once a year also the neighbors 
would gather together, and go on a gipsy party to 
Epping Forest. It would have done any man's heart 
good to see the merriment that took place here as we 
banqueted on the grass under the trees. How we 
made the woods ring with bursts of laughter at the 



LITTLE BRITAIN 363 

songs of little Wagstaff and the merry undertaker! 
After dinner, too, the young folks would play at blind- 
man's-buff and hide-and-seek; and it was amusing to 
see them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine 
romping girl now and then squeak from among the 
bushes. The elder folks would gather round the 
cheese-monger and the apothecary, to hear them talk 
politics ; for they generally brought out a newspaper in 
their pockets, to pass away time in the country. They 
would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in 
argument ; but their disputes were always adjusted by 
reference to a worthy old umbrella-maker in a double 
chin, who, never exactly comprehending the subject, 
managed somehow or other to decide in favor of both 
parties. 

All empires, however, says some philosopher or 
historian, are doomed to changes and revolutions. 
Luxury and innovation creep in; factions arise; and 
families now and then spring up, whose ambition and 
intrigues throw the whole system into confusion. 
Thus in latter days has the tranquillity of Little 
Britain been grievously disturbed, and its golden sim- 
plicity of manners threatened with total subversion, by 
the aspiring family of a retired butcher. 

The family of the Lambs had long been among the 
most thriving and popular in the neighborhood; the 
Miss Lambs were the belles of Little Britain, and 
everybody was pleased when Old Lamb had made 
money enough to shut up shop, and put his name on a 
brass plate on his door. In an evil hour, however, one 



364 THE SKETCH BOOK 

of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being a lady in 
attendance on the Lady Mayoress, at her grand 
annual ball, on which occasion she wore three towering 
ostrich feathers on her head. The family never got 
over it ; they were immediately smitten with a passion 
for high life; set up a one-horse carriage, put a bit of 
gold lace round the errand boy's hat, and have been 
the talk and detestation of the whole neighborhood 
ever since. They could no longer be induced to play 
at Pope-Joan or blind-man's-buff; they could endure 
no dances but quadrilles, which nobody had ever 
heard of in Little Britain; and they took to reading 
novels, talking bad French, and playing upon the 
piano. Their brother, too, who had been articled to 
an attorney, set up for a dandy and a critic, characters 
hitherto unknown in these parts; and he confounded 
the worthy folks exceedingly by talking about Kean, 
the opera, ^ and the Edinburgh Review. 

What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, 
to which they neglected to invite any of their old 
neighbors; but they had a great deal of genteel com- 
pany from Theobald's Road, Red-Lion Square, and 
other parts towards the west. There were several 
beaux of their brother's acquaintance from Gray's Inn 
Lane and Hatton Garden; and not less than three 
Aldermen's ladies with their daughters. This was 
not to be forgotten or forgiven. All Little Britain 
was in an uproar with the smacking of whips, the 
lashing of miserable horses, and the rattling and 
the jingling of hackney coaches. The gossips of the 



LITTLE BRITAIN 365 

neighborhood might be seen popping their night-caps 
out at every window, watching the crazy vehicles 
rumble by; and there was a knot of virulent old 
cronies, that kept a look-out from a house just opposite 
the retired butcher's, and scanned and criticised every 
one that knocked at the door. 

This dance was a cause of almost open war, and the 
whole neighborhood declared they would have nothing 
more to say to the Lambs. It is true that Mrs. 
Lamb, when she had no engagements with her quality 
acquaintance, would give little humdrum tea junk- 
etings to some of her old cronies, "quite," as she 
would say, "in a friendly way"; and it is equally true 
that her invitations were always accepted, in spite of 
all previous vows to the contrary. Nay, the good 
ladies would sit and be delighted with the music of the 
Miss Lambs, who would condescend to strum an 
Irish melody for them on the piano; and they would 
listen with wonderful interest to Mrs. Lamb's anec- 
dotes of Alderman Plunket's family, of Portsoken- 
ward, and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich heiresses of 
Crutched-Friars ; but then they relieved their con- 
sciences, and averted the reproaches of their confeder- 
ates, by canvassing at the next gossiping convocation 
everything that had passed, and pulling the Lambs 
and their rout all to pieces. 

The only one of the family that could not be made 
fashionable was the retired butcher himself. Honest 
Lamb, in spite of the meekness of his name, was a 
rough, hearty old fellow, with the voice of a lion, a 



366 THE SKETCH BOOK 

head of black hair like a shoe-brush, and a broad face 
mottled Hke his own beef. It was in vain that the 
daughters always spoke of him as "the old gentle- 
man," addressed him as "papa," in tones of infinite 
softness, and endeavored to coax him into a dressing- 
gown and slippers, and other gentlemanly habits'. 
Do what they might, there was no keeping down the 
butcher. His sturdy nature would break through all 
their glozings. He had a hearty vulgar good-humor 
that was irrepressible. His very jokes made his 
sensitive daughters shudder; and he persisted in 
wearing his blue cotton coat of a morning, dining at 
two o'clock, and having a "bit of sausage with hiS' 
tea." 

He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity 
of his family. He found his old comrades gradually 
growing cold and civil to him; no longer laughing at 
his jokes; and now and then throwing out a fling at 
"some people," and a hint about "quality binding." 
This both nettled and perplexed the honest butcher; 
and his wife and daughters, with the consummate 
policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage of the 
circumstance, at length prevailed upon him to give up 
his afternoon's pipe and tankard at Wagstaff's; to sit 
after dinner by himself, and take his pint of port — a 
liquor he detested — and to nod in his chair in solitary 
and dismal gentility. 

The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting along 
the streets in French bonnets, with unknown beaux; 
and talking and laughing so loud that it distressed the 



LITTLE BRITAIN 367 

nerves of every good lady within hearing. They even 
went so far as to attempt patronage, and actually 
induced a French dancing-master to set up in the 
neighborhood; but the worthy folks of Little Britain 
took fire at it, and did so persecute the poor Gaul, that 
he was fain to pack up fiddle and dancing-pumps, and 
decamp with such precipitation, that he absolutely 
forgot to pay for his lodgings. 

I had flattered myself, at first, with the idea that all 
this fiery indignation on the part of the community 
was merely the overflowing of their zeal for good old 
English manners, and their horror of innovation; and 
I applauded the silent contempt they were so vocifer- 
ous in expressing, for upstart pride, French fashions, 
and the Miss Lambs. But I grieve to say that I soon 
perceived the infection had taken hold; and that my 
neighbors, after condemning, were beginning to 
follow their example. I overheard my landlady 
importuning her husband to let their daughters have 
one quarter at French and music, and that they 
might take a few lessons in quadrille. I even saw, in 
the course of a few Sundays, no less than five French 
bonnets, precisely like those of the Miss Lambs, 
parading about Little Britain. 

I still had my hopes that all this folly would grad- 
ually die away ; that the Lambs might move out of the 
neighborhood; might die, or might run away with 
attorneys' apprentices; and that quiet and simplicity 
might be again restored to the community. But 
unluckily a rival power arose. An opulent oilman 



368 THE SKETCH BOOK 

died, and left a widow with a large jointure and ai 
family of buxom daughters. The young ladies hadl 
long been repining in secret at the parsimony of ai 
prudent father, which kept down all their elegant;! 
aspirings. Their ambition, being now no longer 
restrained, broke out into a blaze, and they openly 
took the field against the family of the butcher. It is 
true that the Lambs, having had the first start, had 
naturally an advantage of them in the fashionable 
career. They could speak a little bad French, play 
the piano, dance quadrilles, and had formed high 
acquaintances; but the Trotters were not to be dis- 
tanced. When the Lambs appeared with two feathers ; 
in their hats, the Miss Trotters mounted four, and of: 
twice as fine colors. If the Lambs gave a dance,, 
the Trotters were sure not to be behindhand; and! 
though they might not boast of as good company, yet 
they had double the number, and were twice asi 
merry. 

The whole community has at length divided itself I 
into fashionable factions, under the banners of these; 
two families. The old games of Pope- Joan and Tom- 
come- tickle-me are entirely discarded; there is no) 
such thing as getting up an honest country dance;; 
and on my attempting to kiss a young lady under • 
the mistletoe last Christmas, I was indignantly 
repulsed; the Miss Lambs having pronounced it: 
"shocking vulgar." Bitter rivalry has also broken i 
out as to the most fashionable part of Little Britain;; 
the Lambs standing up for the dignity of Cross- 



LITTLE BRITAIN 369 

Keys Square, and the Trotters for the vicinity of 
St. Bartholomew's. 

Thus is this little territory torn by factions and 
internal dissensions, like the great empire whose name 
it bears ; and what will be the result would puzzle the 
apothecary himself, with all his talent at prognostics, 
to determine; though I apprehend that it will 
terminate in the total downfall of genuine John 
Bullism. 

The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to 
me. Being a single man, and, as I observed before, 
rather an idle good-for-nothing personage, I have been 
considered the only gentleman by profession in the 
place. I stand therefore in high favor with both 
parties, and have to hear all their cabinet councils and 
mutual backbi tings. As I am too civil not to agree 
with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed my- 
self most horribly with both parties, by abusing their 
opponents. I might manage to reconcile this to my 
conscience, which is a truly accommodating one, but I 
cannot to my apprehension — if the Lambs and Trot- 
ters ever come to a reconciliation, and compare notes, 
I am ruined! 

I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in 
time, and am actually looking out for some other nest 
in this great city, where old English manners are still 
kept up ; where French is neither eaten, drunk, danced, 
nor spoken; and where there are no fashionable 
families of retired tradesmen. This found, I will, like 
a veteran rat, hasten away before I have an old house 
24 



370 THE SKETCH BOOK 

about my ears; bid a long, though a sorrowful adieu to J 
my present abode, and leave the rival factions of the^ 
Lambs and the Trotters to divide the distracted 
empire of Little Britain. 



STRATFORD-ON-AVON 

Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream 

Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream ; 

The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 

For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head. 

Garrick. 

To a homelevSS man, who has no spot on this wide 
world which he can truly call his own, there is a 
momentary feeling of something like independence 
and territorial consequence, when, after a weary day's 
travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into 
slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let 
the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or 
fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, 
he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he 
surveys. The arm-chair is his throne, the poker his 
sceptre,^ and the little parlor, some twelve feet square, 
his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainty, 
snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life ; it 
is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy 
day; and he who has advanced some way on the 
pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of 
husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoy- 
ment. "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?"'' 
thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in 
my elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about 

371 



372 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the little parlor of the Red Horse, at Stratford-on- 
Avon. 

The words of sweet Shakespeare were just passing 
through my mind as the clock struck midnight from 
the tower of the church in which he lies buried. There 
was a gentle tap at the door, and a pretty chamber- 
maid, putting in her smiling face, inquired, with a 
hesitating air, whether I had rung. I understood it as 
a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream of 
absolute dominion was at an end; so abdicating my 
throne, like a prudent potentate, to avoid being 
deposed, and putting the Stratford Guide-Book under 
my arm, as a pillow companion, I went to bed, and 
dreamt all night of Shakespeare, the jubilee, and 
David Garrick. 

The next morning was one of those quickening 
mornings which we sometimes have in early spring; 
for it was about the middle of March. The chills of a 
long winter had suddenly given way; the north wind 
had spent its last gasp; and a mild air came stealing 
from the west, breathing the breath of life into nature, 
and wooing every bud and flower to burst forth into 
fragrance and beauty. 

I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. 
My first visit was to the house where Shakespeare was 
born, and where, according to tradition, he was 
brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It 
is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, 
a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight 
in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 373 

its squalid chambers are covered with names and 
inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all 
nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the 
peasant; and present a simple, but striking instance 
of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind 
to the great poet of nature. 

The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a 
frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, 
and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, 
curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She 
was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with 
which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. 
There was the shattered stock of the very match-lock 
with which Shakespeare shot the deer, on his poaching 
exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box; which 
proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter 
Raleigh : the sword also with which he played Hamlet ; 
and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence 
discovered Romeo and JuHet at the tomb! There 
was an ample supply also of Shakespeare's mulberry- 
tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers 
of self -multiplication as the wood of the true cross; 
of which there is enough extant to build a ship of 
the line. 

The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is 
Shakespeare's chair. It stands in the chimney nook of 
a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his 
father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat 
when a boy, watching the slowly revolving spit with 
all the longing of an urchin; or of an evening, listening 



374 THE SKETCH BOOK 

to the cronies and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth 
churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the 
troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the 
custom of every one that visits the house to sit: 
whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any 
of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to say, I 
merely mention the fact; and mine hostess privately 
assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was 
the fervent zeal of devotees, that th'e chair had to be 
new bottomed at least once in three years. It is 
worthy of notice also, in the history of this extraordi- 
nary chair, that it partakes something of the volatile 
nature of the Santa Casa of Lore t to, or the flying 
chair of the Arabian enchanter; for though sold some 
few years since to a northern princess, yet, strange to 
tell, it has found its way back again to the old chimney 
corner. 

I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am 
ever willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant 
and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready believer 
in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblin»^and 
great men; and would advise all travellers who travel 
for their gratification to be the same. What is it to us, 
whether these stories be true or false, so long as we can 
persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and enjoy 
all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like 
resolute good-humored credulity in these matters ; and 
on this occasion I went even so far as wilHngly to 
believe the claims of mine hostess to a lineal descent 
from the poet, when, luckily, for my faith, she put into 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 375 

my hands a play of her own composition, which set all 
belief in her consanguinity at defiance. 

From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces 
brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel 
of the parish church, a large and venerable pile, 
mouldering with age, but richly ornamented. It 
stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered 
point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the 
suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and 
retired; the river runs murmuring at the foot of the 
churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks 
droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue 
of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, 
so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads 
up from the gate of the yard to the church porch. 
The graves are overgrown with grass; the gray tomb- 
stones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are 
half covered with moss, which has likewise tinted the 
reverend old building. Small birds have built their 
nests among the cornices and fissures of the walls, and 
keep up a continual flutter and chirping ; and rooks are 
sailing and cawing about its lofty gray spire. 

In the course of my rambles I met with the gray- 
headed sexton, Edmonds, and accompanied him home 
to get the key of the church. He had lived in Strat- 
ford, man and boy, for eighty years, and seemed still 
to consider himself a vigorous man, with the trivial 
exception that he had nearly lost the use of his legs for 
a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage, looking 
out upon the Avon and its bordering meadows; and 



376 THE SKETCH BOOK 

was a picture of that neatness, order, and comfort, 
which pervade the humblest dwelHngs in this country. 
A low white- washed room, with a stone floor carefully 
scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, and hall. Rows 
of pewter and earthen dishes glittered along the dres- 
ser. On an old oaken table, well rubbed and polished, 
lay the family Bible and prayer-book, and the drawer 
contained the family library, composed of about half 
a score of well-thumbed volumes. An ancient clock, 
that important article of cottage furniture, ticked 
on the opposite side of the room; with a bright 
warming-pan hanging on one side of it, and the old 
man's horn-handled Sunday cane on the other. The 
fireplace, as usual, was wide and deep enough to 
admit a gossip knot within its jambs. In one corner 
sat the old man's granddaughter sewing, a pretty blue- 
eyed girl, — and in the opposite corner was a super- 
annuated crony, whom he addressed by the name of 
John Ange, and who, I found, had been his companion 
from childhood. They had played together in 
infancy ; they had worked together in manhood ; they 
were now tottering about and gossiping away the 
evening of Hf e ; and in a short time they will probably 
be buried together in the neighboring churchyard. It 
is not often that we see two streams of existence 
running thus evenly and tranquilly side by side; it 
is only in such quiet "bosom scenes" of life that they 
are to be met with. 

I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes 
of the bard from these ancient chroniclers; but they 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 2>77 

had nothing new to impart. The long interval dur- 
ing which Shakespeare's writings lay in comparative 
neglect has spread its shadow over his history ; and it is 
his good or evil lot that scarcely anything remains to 
his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures. 

The sexton and his companion had been employed 
as carpenters on the preparations for the celebrated 
Stratford jubilee, and they remembered Garrick, the 
prime mover of the fete, who superintended the 
arrangements, and who, according to the sexton, was 
"a short punch man, very lively and bustling." 
John Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shake- 
speare's mulberry tree, of which he had a morsel in his 
pocket for sale; no doubt a sovereign quickener of 
literary conception. 

I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak 
very dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the 
Shakespeare house. John Ange shook his head when I 
mentioned her valuable collection of relics, particu- 
larly her remains of the mulberry- tree; and the old 
sexton even expressed a doubt as to Shakespeare hav- 
ing been born in her house. I soon discovered that he 
looked upon her mansion with an evil eye, as a rival to 
the poet's tomb; the latter having comparatively but 
few visitors. Thus it is that historians differ at the 
very outset, and mere pebbles make the stream of 
truth diverge into different channels even at the 
fountain head. 

We approached the church through the avenue of 
limes, and entered by a Gothic porch, highly oma- 



378 THE SKETCH BOOK 



merited, with carved doors of massive oak. The 
interior is spacious, and the architecture and embel- 
Hshments superior to those of most country churches. 
There are several ancient monuments of nobiHty and 
gentry, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, 
and banners dropping piecemeal from the waUs. The 
tomb of Shakespeare is in the chancel. The place is 
solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the 
pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short 
distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual 
murmur. A flat stone marks the spot where the bard 
is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said to 
have been written by himself, and which have in them 
something extremely awful. If they are indeed his 
own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of the 
grave, which seems natural to fine sensibilities and 
thoughtful minds. 

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare 
To dig the dust enclosed here. 
Blessed be he that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones. 

Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust' 
of Shakespeare, put up shortly after his death, and con- 
sidered as a resemblance. The aspect is pleasant and 
serene, with a finely-arched forehead; and I thought 
I could read in it clear indications of that cheerful, 
social disposition, by which he was as much character- 
ized among his contemporaries as by the vastness of 
his genius. The inscription mentions his age at the 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 379 

time of his decease — fifty-three years; an untimely 
death for the world : for what fruit might not have been 
expected from the golden autumn of such a mind, shel- 
tered as it was from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and 
flourishing in the sunshine of popular and royal favor. 

The inscription on the tombstone has not been 
without its effect. It has prevented the removal of 
his remains from the bosom of his native place to 
Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contem- 
plated. A few years since also, as some laborers were 
digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth caved in, 
so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, 
through which one might have reached into his grave. 
No one, however, presumed to meddle with his 
remains so awfully guarded by a malediction ; and lest 
any of the idle or the curious, or any collector of relics, 
should be tempted to commit depredations, the old 
sexton kept watch over the place for two days, until 
the vault was finished and the aperture closed again. 
He told me that he had made bold to look in at the 
hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing 
but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen 
the dust of Shakespeare. 

Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite 
daughter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a 
tomb close by, also, is a full-length effigy of his old 
friend John Combe of usurious memory ; on whom he 
is said to have written a ludicrous epitaph. There are 
other monuments around, but the mind refuses to 
dwell on anything that is not connected with Shake- 



38o THE SKETCH BOOK 

speare. His idea pervades the place; the whole pile 
seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer 
checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in 
perfect confidence; other traces of him may be false or 
dubious, but here are palpable evidence and absolute ;]' 
certainty. As I trod the sounding pavement, there 
was something intense and thrilling in the idea, that, 
in very truth, the remains of Shakespeare were mould- 
ering beneath my feet. It was a long time before I J 
could prevail upon myself to leave the place ; and as I 
passed through the churchyard, I plucked a branch 
from one of the yew trees, the only relic that I have 
brought from Stratford. 

I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's 
devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family seat 
of the Lucys, at Charlecot, and to ramble through the 
park where Shakespeare, in company with some of the 
roysters of Stratford, committed his youthful offence 
of deer-stealing. In this hare-brained exploit we are 
told that he was taken prisoner, and carried to the 
keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in doleful 
captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir 
Thomas Lucy, his treatment must have been galling 
and humiliating ; for it so wrought upon his spirit as to 
produce a rough pasquinade, which was affixed to the 
park gate at Charlecot.* 

* The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon: 

A parliament member, a justice of peace, 

At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse, 



STRA T FORD-ON- A VON 38 1 

This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the knight 
so incensed him, that he appHed to a lawyer at V^r^r- 
wick to put the severity of the laws in force against thv 
rhyming deer-stalker. Shakespeare did not wait to 
brave the united puissance of a knight of the shire and 
a country attorney. He forthwith abandoned the 
pleasant banks of the Avon and his paternal trade; 
wandered away to London ; became a hanger-on to the 
theatres; then an actor; and, finally, wrote for the 
stage ; and thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas 
Lucy, Stratford lost an indifferent wool-comber, and 
the world gained an immortal poet. He retained, 
however, for a long time, a sense of the harsh treat- 
ment of the Lord of Charlecot, and revenged himself 
in his writings; but in the sportive way of a good- 
natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the original 
Justice Shallow,^ and the satire is slyly fixed upon him 
by the justice's armorial bearings, which, like those of 
the knight, had white luces* in the quart erings. 

Various attempts have been made by his biog- 
raphers to soften and explain away this early trans- 
gression of the poet ; but I look upon it as one of those 

If lowsie is Lucy, as soem volke miscalle it, 
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it. 
He thinks himself great; 
Yet an asse in his state, 
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate, 
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it. 
Then sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it. 
* The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon about 
Charlecot. 



382 THE SKETCH BOOK 

thoughtless exploits natural to his situation and turn; 
of mind. Shakespeare, when young, had doubtless all 
the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, undisci- 
plined, and undirected genius. The poetic tempera- 
ment has naturally something in it of the vagabond. 
When left to itself it runs loosely and wildly, and: 
delights in everything eccentric and licentious. It ist 
often a turn-up of a die, in the gambling freaks of fate,| 
whether a natural genius shall turn out a great rogue or- 
a great poet ; and had not Shakespeare's mind fortu- 
nately taken a literary bias, he might have as daringly 
transcended all civil, as he has all dramatic laws. 

I have little doubt that, in early life, when running 
like an unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of v 
Stratford, he was to be found in the company of all 
kinds of odd anomalous characters ; that he associated 
with all the madcaps of the place, and was one of those 
unlucky urchins, at mention of whom old men shake jl 
their heads, and predict that they will one day come ' 
to the gallows. To him the poaching in Sir Thomas 
Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish 
knight, and struck his eager, and, as yet untamed, 
imagination, as something delightfully adventurous.'* 



* A proof of Shakespeare's random habits and associates in hi^ ■ 
youthful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote, pickec 
up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, and mentioned in his Pic- 
turesque Views on the Avon. 

About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little markel * 
town of Bedford, famous for its ale. Two societies of the village 
yeomanry used to meet, under the appellation of the Bedford topen 
and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the neighboring villager J 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 383 

The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding 
park still remain in the possession of the Lucy family, 
and are peculiarly interesting, from being connected 
with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the 
scanty history of the bard. As the house stood but 
little more than three miles' distance from Stratford, 
I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might 
stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from 
which Shakespeare must have derived his earliest ideas 
of rural imagery. 

The country was yet naked and leafless ; but English 
I scenery is always verdant, and the sudden change in 

to contest of drinking. Among others, the people of Stratford 
were called out to prove the strength of their heads; and in the 
number of the champions was Shakespeare, who, in spite of the 
proverb that "they who drink beer will think beer," was as true to 
his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The chivalry of Stratford was stag- 
gered at the first onset, and sounded a retreat while they had yet 
legs to carry them ofif the field. They had scarcely marched a 
mile when, their legs failing them, they were forced to lie down 
under a crabtree, where they passed the night. It is still stand- 
ing, and goes by the name of Shakespeare's tree. 

In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and proposed 
returning to Bedford, but he dechned, saying he had had enough, 
having drank with 

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, 
I Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, 

Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford. 
"The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, "still bear the 
epithets thus given them: the people of Pebworth are still famed for 
their skill on the pipe and tabor; Hilborough is now called Haunted 
Hillborough; and Grafton is famous for the poverty of its soil- " 



384 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the temperature of the weather was surprising in its 
quickening effects upon the landscape. It was in- 
spiring and animating to witness this first awakening: 
of spring; to feel its warm breath stealing over the 
senses ; to see the moist mellow earth beginning to put 
forth the green sprout and the tender blade; and thci 
trees and shrubs, in their reviving tints and bursting; 
buds, giving the promise of returning foliage and^ 
flower. The cold snow-drop, that little borderer on thc^ 
skirts of winter, was to be seen with its chaste white 
blossoms in the small gardens before the cottages . Thf 
bleating of the new-dropt lambs was faintly heard frorr 
the fields. The sparrow twittered about the thatchec 
eaves and budding hedges ; the robin threw a livelie] 
note into his late querulous wintry strain ; and the lark 
springing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow 
towered away into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring 
forth torrents of melody. As I watched the little song j 
ster, mounting up higher and higher, until his body wa; J 
a mere speck on the white bosom of the cloud, while 
the ear was still filled with his music, it called to mincj 
Shakespeare's exquisite little song in Cymbeline: I 

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, j 

And Phoebus' gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs, 

On chaliced flowers that lies. 

And winking mary-buds begin 

To ope their golden eyes; 
With everything that pretty bin, 

My lady sweet arise ! 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 385 

Indeed the whole country about here is poetic 
ground: everything is associated with the idea of 
Shakespeare. Every old cottage that I saw, I fancied 
into some resort of his boyhood, where he had acquired 
his intimate knowledge of rustic life and manners, and 
heard those legendary tales and wild superstitions 
which he has woven like witchcraft into his dramas. 
For in his time, we are told, it was a popular amuse- 
ment in winter evenings "to sit round the fire and tell 
merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, 
ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, 
fairies, goblins, and friars."* 

My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the 
Avon, which made a variety of the most fancy doub- 
lings and windings through a wide and fertile valley; 
sometimes glittering from among willows, which 
fringed its borders; sometimes disappearing among 
groves, or beneath green banks ; and sometimes ramb- 
ling out into full view, and making an azure sweep 
round a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom 
of country is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A 
distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be its 

* Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, enumerates a host of 
these fireside fancies. "And they have so fraid us with bull-beg- 
gars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, 
faunes, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, 
giantes, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changelings, incubus, 
Robin-good-fellow, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, 
the hell-waine, the fier-drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe, hobgob- 
lins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, that we were 
afraid of our own shadowes. " 

25 



386 THE SKETCH BOOK 

boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape 
lies in a manner enchained in the silver links of the J 
Avon. 

After pursuing the road for about three miles, 1 
turned off into a footpath, which led along the borders 
of fields, and under hedgerows to a private gate of the 
park; there was a stile, however, for the benefit of the 
pedestrian; there being a public right of way through, 
the grounds. I delight in these hospitable estates, in 
which every one has a kind of property — at least as far 
as the footpath is concerned. It in some measure ' 
reconciles a poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to 
the better lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and 
pleasure-grounds thrown open for his recreation. He ^ 
breathes the pure air as freely, and lolls as luxuriously 
under the shade, as the lord of the soil; and if he has 
not the privilege of calling all that he sees his own, he 
has not, at the same time, the trouble of paying for it, 
and keeping it in order. 

I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks- 
and elms, whose vast size bespoke the growth of I 
centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their 
branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary 
nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged through a long 
lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the view but 
a distant statue; and a vagrant deer stalking like a 
shadow across the opening. 

There is something about these stately old avenues 
that has the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely 
from the pretended similarity of form, but from their I 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 387 

bearing the evidence of long duration, and of having 
had their origin in a period of time with which we 
associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken 
also the long-settled dignity, and proudly-concentrated 
independence of an ancient family; and I have heard 
a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when 
speaking of the sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, 
that "money could do much with stone and mortar, 
but, thank Heaven, there was no such thing as 
suddenly building up an avenue of oaks." 

It was from wandering in early life among this rich 
scenery, and about the romantic solitudes of the 
adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then formed a part 
of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakespeare's com- 
mentators have supposed he derived his noble forest 
meditations of Jaques,^ and the enchanting woodland 
pictures in As you Like it. It is in lonely wander- 
ings through such scenes, that the mind drinks deep 
but quiet draughts of inspiration, and becomes in- 
tensely sensible of the beauty and majesty of nature. 
The imagination kindles into reverie and rapture; 
vague but exquisite images and ideas keep breaking 
upon it; and we revel in a mute and almost incom- 
municable luxury of thought. It was in some such 
mood, and perha;^s under one of those very trees 
before me, which threw their broad shades over the 
grassy banks and quivering waters of the Avon, 
that the poet's fancy may have sallied forth into 
that little song which breathes the very soul of a rural 
voluptuary : 



388 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Under the green wood tree, 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry throat 
Unto the sweet bird's note, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither. 
Here shall he see 
No enemy, 
But winter and rough weather. * 

I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large 
building of brick, with stone quoins, and is in the 
Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, having been 
built in the first year of her reign. The exterior 
remains very nearly in its original state, and may be 
considered a fair specimen of the residence of a wealthy 
country gentleman of those days. A great gateway 
opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front 
of the house, ornamented with a grass-plot, shrubs, 
and flower-beds. The gateway is in imitation of the 
ancient barbacan; being a kind of outpost, and flanked 
by towers; though evidently for mere ornament, 
instead of defence. The front of the house is com- 
pletely in the old style ; with stone-shafted casements, 
a great bow- window of heavy stone- work, and a portal 
with armorial bearings over it — carved in stone. At 
each corner of the building is an octagon tower, sur- 
mounted by a gilt ball and weathercock. 

The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a 
bend just at the foot of a gently-sloping bank, which '' 
sweeps down from the rear of the house. Large herds 
of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders ; and I 
swans were sailing majestically upon its bosom. As 

i 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 389 

I contemplated the venerable old mansion, I called to 
mind Falstaff's encomium on Justice Shallow's abode, 
and the affected indifference and real vanity of the 
latter: 

Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a rich. 
Shallow. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir 
John: — marry, good air.^ 

What may have been the joviality of the old man- 
sion in the days of Shakespeare, it had now an air of 
stillness and solitude. The great iron gateway that 
opened into the courtyard was locked; there was no 
show of servants bustling about the place; the deer 
gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no longer har- 
ried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only sign 
of domestic life that I met with was a white cat, steal- 
ing with wary look and stealthy pace towards the 
stables, as if on some nefarious expedition. I must 
not omit to mention the carcass of a scoundrel crow 
which I saw suspended against the barn wall, as it 
shows that the Lucys still inherit that lordly abhor- 
rence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise 
of territorial power which was so strenuously mani- 
fested in the case of the bard. 

After prowling about for some time, I at length 
found my way to a lateral portal, which was the every- 
day entrance to the mansion. I was courteously 
received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the 
civility and communicativeness of her order, showed 
me the interior of the house. The greater part has 



390 THE SKETCH BOOK 

undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern 
tastes and modes of living: there is a fine old oaken 
staircase; and the great hall, that noble feature in an 
ancient manor-house, still retains much of the appear- 
ance it must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The 
ceiling is arched and lofty ; and at one end is a gallery 
in which stands an organ. The weapons and trophies 
of the chase, which formerly adorned the hall of a 
country gentleman, have made way for family por- 
traits. There is a wide hospitable fireplace, calcu- 
lated for an ample old-fashioned wood fire, formerly 
the rallying-place of winter festivity. On the opposite 
side of the hall is the huge Gothic bow-window, with 
stone shafts, which looks out upon the courtyard. 
Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial 
bearings of the Lucy family for many generations, 
some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe 
in the quarterings the three white luces, by which the 
character of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of 
Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in the first scene 
of the Merry Wives of Windsor, where the Justice is in 
a rage with Falstaff for having "beaten his men, killed 
his deer, and broken into his lodge. " The poet had no 
doubt the offences of himself and his comrades in mind 
at the time, and we may suppose the family pride and 
vindictive threats of the puissant Shallow to be a 
caricature of the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas. 

Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star- 
Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty John Falstaff s, he shall 
not abuse Sir Robert vShallow, Esq. 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 391 

Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram. 

Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and ciistaloriim. 

Slender. Ay, and ratalorum too, and a gentleman bom, master 
parson; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quit- 
tance, or obligation, Armigero. 

Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three 
hundred years. 

Slender. All his successors gone before him have done 't, and 
all his ancestors that come after him may; they may give the 
dozen white luces in their coat. . . . 

Shallow. The council shall hear it; it is a riot. 

Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot; there is no f:ar 
of Got in a riot; the council, hear you, shall desire to hear the 
fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that. 

Shallow. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword 
should end it!" 

Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait 
by Sir Peter Lely, of one of the Lucy family, a great 
beauty of the time of Charles the Second; the old 
housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the pic- 
ture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly 
addicted to cards, and had gambled away a great 
portion of the family estate, among which was that 
part of the park where Shakespeare and his comrades 
had killed the deer. The lands thus lost had not been 
entirely regained by the family even at the present 
day. It is but justice to this recreant dame to confess 
that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm. 

The picture which most attracted my attention was 
a great painting over the fireplace, containing like- 
nesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family, who inhab- 
ited the hall in the latter part of Shakespeare's lifetime. 



392 THE SKETCH BOOK 

I at first thought that it was the vindictive knight; 
himself, but the housekeeper assured me that it was ; 
his son ; the only likeness extant of the former being an , 
effigy upon his tomb in the church of the neighboring 
hamlet of Charlecot.* The picture gives a lively idea 
of the costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas 
is dressed in ruff and doublet ; white shoes with roses in 
them ; and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender 
would say, "a cane-colored beard." His lady is seated 
on the opposite side of the picture, in wide ruff and 

* This effigy is in white marble, and represents the Knight in 
complete armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on her 
tomb is the following inscription ; which, if really composed by her 
husband, places him quite above the intellectual level of Master 
Shallow: 

"Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of 
Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir 
of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire 
who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly kingdom 
ye ID day of February in ye yeare of our Lord God 1595 and of her 
age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a true and faythful ser- 
vant of her good God, never detected of any cryme or vice. In re- 
ligion most sounde, in love to her husband most faythful and true. 
In friendship most constant; to what in trust was committed unto 
her most secret. In wisdom excelling. In governing of her 
house, bringing up of youth in ye fear of God that did converse 
with her moste rare and singular. A great maintayner of hospi- 
tality. Greatly esteemed of her betters; disliked of none unless 
of the envyous. When all is spoken that can be saide a woman so 
garnished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be 
equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuously so shee died most 
Godly. Set downe by him yt best did knowe what hath byn 
written to be true. ' 'Thomas Lucye. " 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 393 

long stomacher, and the children have a most vener- 
able stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and 
spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk is 
seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of the 
children holds a bow; — all intimating the knight's 
skill in hunting, hawking, and archery — so indis- 
pensable to an accomplished gentleman in those days.* 
I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the 
hall had disappeared ; for I had hoped to meet with the 
stately elbow-chair of carved oak, in which the country 
squire of former days was wont to sway the sceptre 
of empire over his rural domains; and in which it 
might be presumed the redoubted Sir Thomas sat 
enthroned in awful state when the recreant Shake- 
speare was brought before him. As I like to deck out 
pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself 
with the idea that this very hall had been the scene of 
the unlucky bard's examination on the morning after 
his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the 

* Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his time, 
observes, "his housekeeping is seen much in the different families 
of dogs and serving-men attendant on their kennels; and the 
deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk 
he esteems the true burden of nobiHty, and is exceedingly ambi- 
tious to seem delighted with the sport, and have his fist gloved with 
his jesses. " And Gilpin, in his description of a Mr. Hastings, re- 
marks, "he kept all sorts of hounds that run buck, fox, hare, otter, 
and badger; and had hawks of all kinds both long and short 
winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow- 
bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. 
On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest 
terriers, hounds, and spaniels." 



394 THE SKETCH BOOK 

rural potentate, surrounded by his body-guard of 
butler, pages, and blue-coated servingmen, with their 
badges ; while the luckless culprit was brought in, for- 
lorn and chopf alien, in the custody of gamekeepers, 
huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble 
rout of country clowns. I fancied bright faces of 
curious housemaids peeping from the half-opened 
doors ; while from the gallery the fair daughters of the 
knight leaned gracefully forward, eying the youthful 
prisoner with that pity "that dwells in womanhood." 
— Who would have thought that this poor varlet, thus 
trembling before the brief authority of a country 
squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to 
become the delight of princes, the theme of all tongues 
and ages, the dictator to the human mind, and was to 
confer immortality on his oppressor by a caricature 
and a lampoon ! 

I was now invited by the butler to walk into the gar- 
den, and I felt inclined to visit the orchard and arbor 
where the justice treated Sir John Falstaff and Cousin 
Silence "to a last year's pippin of his own grafting, 
with a dish of caraways"; but I had already spent so 
much of the day in my ramblings that I was obhged to 
give up any further investigations. When about to 
take my leave I was gratified by the civil entreaties of 
the housekeeper and butler that I would take 
refreshment : an instance of good old hospitality which 
I grieve to say, we castle-hunters seldom meet with in 
modern days. I make no doubt it is a virtue which 
the present representative of the Lucys inherits from 



STRA T FORD-ON- A VON 395 

his ancestors; for Shakespeare, even in his caricature, 
makes Justice Shallow importunate in this respect, as 
witness his pressing instances to Falstaff. 

By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night ... I will 
not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be 
admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused 
. . . . Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a 
joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell 
William Cook. 

I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My 
mind had become so completely possessed by the 
imaginary scenes and characters connected with it, 
that I seemed to be actually living among them. 
Everything brought them as it were before my eyes; 
and as the door of the dining-room opened, I almost 
expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence 
quavering forth his favorite ditty: 

'T is merr>'' in hall, when beards wag all, 
And welcome merry shrove-tide ! 

On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the 
singular gift of the poet ; to be able thus to spread the 
magic of his mind over the very face of nature ; to give 
to things and places a charm and character not their 
own, and to turn this "working-day world" into a 
perfect fairy land. He is indeed the true enchanter 
whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon 
the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard 
influence of Shakesj^eare I had been walking all day in 



396 THE SKETCH BOOK ^ 

a complete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape 
through the prism of poetry, which tinged every object 
with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded 
with fancied beings; w4th mere airy nothings, conjured 
up by poetic power; yet which, to me, had all the 
charm of reality. I had heard Jaques soliloquize 
beneath his oak ; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her 
companion adventuring through the woodlands; .and 
above all, had been once more present in spirit with 
fat Jack Falstaff and his contemporaries, from the 
august Justice Shallow, down to the gentle Master 
Slender and the sweet Anne Page.^ Ten thousand 
honors and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded 
the dull realities of life with innocent illusions ; who has 
spread exquisite and unbought pleasures in my cheq- 
uered path; and beguiled my spirit in many a lonely 
hour, with all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of 
social Hf e ! 

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, 
I paused to contemplate the distant church in which 
the poet lies buried, and could not but exult in the 
malediction, which has kept his ashes undisturbed in 
its quiet and hallowed vaults. What honor could his 
name have derived from being mingled in dusty com- 
panionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and 
venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would 
a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, 
compared with this reverend pile, which seems to 
stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! 
The solicitude about the grave may be but the off- 



STRA T FORD-ON- A VON 397 

spring of an over- wrought sensibility; but human 
nature is made up of foibles and prejudices; and its 
best and tenderest affections are mingled with these 
factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about 
the world, and has reaped a full harvest of wordly 
favor, will find, after all, that there is no love, no 
admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that 
which springs up in his native place. It is there that 
he seeks to be gathered in peace and honor among his 
kindred and his early friends. And when the weary 
heart and failing head begin to warn him that the 
evening of life is drawing on, he turns as fondly as does 
the infant to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep in the 
bosom of the scene of his childhood. 

How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful 
bard when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubt- 
ful world, he cast back a heavy look upon his paternal 
home, could he have foreseen that, before many years, 
he should return to it covered with renown; that his 
name should become the boast and glory of his native 
place; that his ashes should be religiously guarded as 
its most precious treasure ; and that its lessening spire, 
on which his eyes were fixed in tearful contemplation, 
should one day become the beacon, towering amidst 
the gentle landscape, to guide the literary pilgrim of 
every nation to his tomb ! 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 

I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logan's cabin 
hungry, and he gave him not to eat; if ever he came cold and 
naked, and he clothed him not. 

Speech of an Indian Chief. 

There is something in the character and habits of 
the North American savage, taken in connection with 
the scenery over which he is accustomed to range, 
its vast lakes, boundless forests, majestic rivers, and 
trackless plains, that is, to my mind, wonderfully 
striking and sublime. He is formed for the wilderness, 
as the Arab is for the desert. His nature is stem, 
simple, and enduring; fitted to grapple with difficul- 
ties, and to support privations. There seems but 
little soil in his heart for the support of the kindly 
virtues; and yet, if we would but take the trouble to 
penetrate through that proud stoicism and habitual 
taciturnity, which lock up his character from casual 
observation, we should find him linked to his fellow- 
man of civilized life by more of those sympathies and 
affections than are usually ascribed to him. 

It has been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of 
America, in the early periods of colonization, to be 
doubly wronged by the white men. They have been 
dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by mer- 

398 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 399 

cenary and frequently wanton warfare : and their char- 
acters have been traduced by bigoted and interested 
writers. The colonist often treated them like beasts 
of the forest ; and the author has endeavored to justify 
him in his outrages. The former found it easier to ex- 
terminate than to civiHze ; the latter to vilify than to 
discriminate. The appellations of savage and pagan 
were deemed sufficient to sanction the hostilities of 
both; and thus the poor wanderers of the forest were 
persecuted and defamed, not because they were 
guilty, but because they were ignorant. 

The rights of the savage have seldom been properly 
appreciated or respected by the white man. In 
peace he has too often been the dupe of artful 
traffic; in war he has been regarded as a ferocious 
animal, whose life or death was a question of mere 
precaution and convenience. Man is cruelly waste- 
ful of life when his own safety is endangered, and 
he is sheltered by impunity; and little mercy is 
to be expected from him, when he feels the sting 
of the reptile and is conscious of the power to 
destroy. 

The same prejudices, which were indulged thus 
early, exist in common circulation at the present day. 
Certain learned societies have, it is true, with laudable 
diligence, endeavored to investigate and record the 
real characters and manners of the Indian tribes; the 
American government, too, has wisely and humanely 
exerted itself to inculcate a friendly and forbearing 
spirit towards them, and to protect them from fraud 



400 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and injustice.* The current opinion of the Indian 
character, however, is too apt to be formed from the 
miserable hordes which infest the frontiers, and hang 
on the skirts of the settlements. These are too com- 
monly composed of degenerate beings, corrupted and 
enfeebled by the vices of society, without being bene- 
fited by its civilization. That proud independence 
which formed the main pillar of savage virtue has 
been shaken down, and the whole moral fabric lies in 
ruins. Their spirits are humiliated and debased by a 
sense of inferiority, and their native courage cowed 
and daunted by the superior knowledge and power of 
their enlightened neighbors. Society has advanced 
upon them like one of those withering airs that will 
sometimes breed desolation over a whole region of 
fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied 
their diseases, and superinduced upon their original 
barbarity the low vices of artificial life. It has given 
them a thousand superfluous wants whilst it has 
diminished their means of mere existence. It has 
driven before it the animals of the chase, who fly from 
the sound of the axe and the smoke of the settlement, 
and seek refuge in the depths of remoter forests and 

*The American government has been indefatigable in its 
exertions to ameliorate the situation of the Indians, and to intro- 
duce among them the arts of civilization, and civil and religious 
knowledge. To protect them from the frauds of the white traders 
no purchase of land from them by individuals is permitted ; nor 
is any person allowed to receive lands from them as a present, 
without the express sanction of government. These precautions 
are strictly enforced. 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 401 

yet untrodden wilds. Thus do we too often find the 
Indians on our frontiers to be the mere wrecks and 
remnants of once powerful tribes, who have lingered in 
the vicinity of the settlements, and sunk into preca- 
rious and vagabond existence. Poverty, repining and 
hopeless poverty, a canker of the mind unknown in 
savage life, corrodes their spirits, and blights every 
free and noble quality of their natures. They become 
drunken, indolent, feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous. 
They loiter like vagrants about the settlements, 
among spacious dwellings replete with elaborate com- 
forts, which only render them sensible of the com- 
parative wretchedness of their own condition. Luxury 
spreads its ample board before their eyes ; but they are 
excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the 
fields ; but they are starving in the midst of its abun- 
dance : the whole wilderness has blossomed into a gar- 
den; but they feel as reptiles that infest it. 

How different was their state while yet the undis- 
puted lords of the soil! Their wants were few, and 
the means of gratification within their reach. They 
saw every one around them sharing the same lot, 
enduring the same hardships, feeding on the same 
aliments, arrayed in the same rude garments. No 
roof then rose, but was open to the homeless stranger; 
no smoke curled among the trees, but he was welcome 
to sit down by its fire, and join the hunter in his repast. 
"For," says an old historian of New England, "their 
life is so void of care, and they are so loving also, that 
they make use of those things they enjoy as common 
26 



402 THE SKETCH BOOK 

goods, and are therein so compassionate, that rather 
than one should starve through want, they would 
starve all; thus they pass their time merrily, not 
regarding our pomp, but are better content with their 
own, which some men esteem so meanly of.'* Such 
were the Indians, whilst in the pride and energy of 
their primitive natures: they resembled those wild 
plants, which thrive best in the shades of the forest, 
but shrink from the hand of cultivation, and perish 
beneath the influence of the sun. 

In discussing the savage character, writers have been 
too prone to indulge in vulgar prejudice and passionate 
exaggeration, instead of the candid temper of true 
philosophy. They have not sufficiently considered 
the peculiar circumstances in which the Indians have 
been placed, and the pecuHar principles under which 
they have been educated. No being acts more rigidly 
from rule than the Indian. His whole conduct is 
regulated according to some general maxims early 
implanted in his mind. The moral laws that govern 
him are, to be sure, but few; but then he conforms to 
them all; — the white man abounds in laws of rehgion, 
morals, and manners, but how many does he violate? 

A frequent ground of accusation against the Indians 
is their disregard of treaties, and the treachery and 
wantonness with which, in time of apparent peace, 
they will suddenly fly to hostiUties. The intercourse 
of the white men with the Indians, however, is too 
apt to be cold, distrustful, oppressive, and insulting. 
They seldom treat them with that confidence and! 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 403 

frankness which are indispensable to real friendship; 
nor is sufficient caution observed not to offend against 
those feelings of pride or superstition, which often 
prompts the Indian to hostility quicker than mere con- 
siderations of interest. The solitary savage feels 
silently, but acutely. His sensibilities are not diffused 
over so wide a surface as those of the white man; but 
they run in steadier and deeper channels. His pride, 
his affections, his superstitions, are all directed towards 
fewer objects; but the wounds inflicted on them are 
proportionably severe, and furnish motives of hostility 
which we cannot sufficiently appreciate. Where a 
community is also limited in number, and forms one 
great patriarchal family as in an Indian tribe, the 
injury of an individual is the injury of the whole ; and 
the sentiment of vengeance is almost instantaneously 
diffused. One council fire is sufficient for the discus- 
sion and arrangement of a plan of hostilities. Here all 
the fighting men and sages assemble. Eloquence and 
superstition combine to inflame the minds of the war- 
riors. The orator awakens their martial ardor, and 
they are wrought up to a kind of religious desperation, 
by the visions of the prophet and the dreamer. 

An instance of one of those sudden exasperations, 
arising from a motive peculiar to the Indian character, 
is extant in an old record of the early settlement of 
Massachusetts. The planters of Plymouth had defaced 
the monument of the dead at Passonagessit, and had 
plundered the grave of the Sachem's mother of some 
skins with which it had been decorated. The Indians 



404 THE SKETCH BOOK 

are remarkable for the reverence which they entertain . 
for the sepulchres of their kindred. Tribes that have : 
passed generations exiled from the abodes of theirj 
ancestors, when by chance they have been travelling in ', 
the vicinity, have been known to turn aside from the : 
highway, and, guided by wonderfully accurate tradi- 
tion, have crossed the country for miles to some 
tumulus, buried perhaps in woods, where the bones of 
their tribe were anciently deposited; and there have 
passed hours in silent meditation. Influenced by this 
sublime and holy feeling, the Sachem, whose mother's 
tomb had been violated, gathered his men together, 
and addressed them in the following beautifully simple 
and pathetic harangue; a curious specimen of Indian 
eloquence, and an affecting instance of filial piety in a 
savage. 

"When last the glorious light of all the sky was 
underneath this globe, and birds grew silent, I began 
to settle, as my custom is, to take repose. Before 
mine eyes were fast closed, me thought I saw a vision, 
at which my spirit was much troubled; and trembling 
at that doleful sight, a spirit cried aloud, 'Behold, my 
son, whom I have cherished, see the breasts that gave 
thee suck, the hands that lapped thee warm, and fed 
thee oft. Canst thou forget to take revenge of those 
wild people who have defaced my monument in a 
despiteful manner, disdaining our antiquities and 
honorable customs? See, now, the Sachem's grave 
lies like the common people, defaced by an ignoble 
race. Thy mother doth complain, and implores thy 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 405 

arid against this thievish people, who have newly 
intruded on our land. If this be suffered, I shall not 
rest quiet in my everlasting habitation.' This said, 
the spirit vanished and I, all in a sweat, not able 
scarce to speak, began to get some strength, and 
recollect my spirits that were fled, and determined to 
demand your counsel and assistance." 

I have adduced this anecdote at some length, as it 
tends to show how these sudden acts of hostility, 
which have been attributed to caprice and perfidy, 
may often arise from deep and generous motives, 
which our inattention to Indian character and customs 
prevents our properly appreciating. 

Another ground of violent outcry against the 
Indians is their barbarity to the vanquished. This 
had its origin partly in policy and partly in supersti- 
tion. The tribes, though sometimes called nations, 
were never so formidable in their numbers, but that 
the loss of several warriors was sensibly felt ; this was 
particularly the case when they had frequently been 
engaged in warfare; and many an instance occurs in 
Indian history, where a tribe, that had long been 
formidable to its neighbors, has been broken up and 
driven away, by the capture and massacre of its 
principal fighting men. There was a strong temp- 
tation, therefore, to the victor to be merciless; not so 
much to gratify any cruel revenge, as to provide for 
future security. The Indians had also the supersti- 
tious beHef, frequent among barbarous nations, and 
prevalent also among the ancients, that the manes of 



4o6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

their friends who had fallen in battle were soothed 
the blood of the captives. The prisoners, however, 
who are not thus sacrificed, are adopted into their' 
families in the place of the slain, and are treated with 
the confidence and affection of relatives and friends; 
nay, so hospitable and tender is their entertainment, 
that when the alternative is offered them, they will 
often prefer to remain with their adopted brethren, 
rather than return to the home and the friends of 
their youth. 

The cruelty of the Indians towards their prisoners 
has been heightened since the colonization of the 
whites. What was formerly a compliance with policy 
and superstition has been exasperated into a gratifi- 
cation of vengeance. They cannot but be sensible 
that the white men are the usurpers of their ancient 
dominion, the cause of their degradation, and the 
gradual destroyers of their race. They go forth to 
battle, smarting with injuries and indignities which 
they have individually suffered, and they are driven to 
madness and despair by the wide-spreading desolation 
and the overwhelming ruin of European warfare. 
The whites have too frequently set them an example 
of violence, by burning their villages, and laying waste 
their slender means of subsistence; and yet they 
wonder that savages do not show moderation and 
magnanimity towards those who have left them noth- 
ing but mere existence and wretchedness. 

We stigmatize the Indians, also, as cowardly and 
treacherous, because they use stratagem in warfare, in 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 407 

preference to open force ; but in this they are fully jus- 
tified by their rude code of honor. They are early 
taught that stratagem is praiseworthy; the bravest 
warrior thinks it no disgrace to lurk in silence, and take 
every advantage of his foe : he triumphs in the superior 
craft and sagacity by which he has been enabled to 
surprise and destroy an enemy. Indeed, man is 
naturally more prone to subtility than open valor, 
owing to his physical weakness in comparison with 
other animals. They are endowed with natural weap- 
ons of defence: with horns, with tusks, with hoofs, 
and talons; but man has to depend on his superior 
sagacity. In all his encounters with these, his proper 
enemies, he resorts to stratagem; and when he per- 
versely turns his hostility against his fellow-man, he at 
first continues the same subtle mode of warfare. 

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm 
to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves ; and this 
of course is to be effected by stratagem. That chival- 
rous courage which induces us to despise the sugges- 
tions of prudence, and to rush in the face of certain 
danger, is the offspring of society, and produced by 
education. It is honorable, because it is in fact the 
triumph of lofty sentiment over an instinctive repug- 
nance to pain, and over those yearnings after personal 
ease and security, which society has condemned as 
ignoble. It is kept alive by pride and the fear of 
shame ; and thus the dread of real evil is overcome by 
the superior dread of an evil which exists but in the 
imagination. It has been cherished and stimulated 



408 THE SKETCH BOOK 

also by various means. It has been the theme of 
spirit-stirring song and chivalrous story. The poet : 
and minstrel have delighted to shed round it the splen- 
dors of fiction ; and even the historian has forgotten the 
sober gravity of narration, and broken forth into en- 
thusiasm and rhapsody in its praise. Triumphs and 
gorgeous pageants have been its reward: monuments, 
on which art has exhausted its skill, and opulence its 
treasures, have been erected to perpetuate a nation's 
gratitude and admiration. Thus artificially excited, 
courage has risen to an extraordinary and factitious 
degree of heroism: and arrayed in all the glorious 
"pomp and circimistance of war," this turbulent 
quality has even been able to eclipse many of those 
quiet, but invaluable virtues, which silently ennoble 
the human character, and swell the tide of human 
happiness. 

But if courage intrinsically consists in the defiance 
of danger and pain, the life of the Indian is a continual 
exhibition of it. He lives in a state of perpetual hos- 
tility and risk. Peril and adventure are congenial to 
his nature; or rather seem necessary to arouse his 
faculties and to give an interest to his existence. 
Surrounded by hostile tribes, whose mode of warfare 
is by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared for 
fight, and lives with his weapons in his hands. As the 
ship careers in fearful singleness through the solitudes 
of ocean; — as the bird mingles among clouds and 
storms, and wings its way, a mere speck, across the 
pathless fields of air; — so the Indian holds his course, 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 409 

silent, solitary, but undaunted, through the boundless 
bosom of the wilderness. His expeditions may vie in 
distance and danger with the pilgrimage of the 
devotee, or the crusade of the knight-errant. He 
traverses vast forests, exposed to the hazards of 
lonely sickness, of lurking enemies, and pining 
famine. Stormy lakes, those great inland seas, are 
no obstacles to his wanderings: in his light canoe 
of bark he sports like a feather on their waves, 
and darts, with the swiftness of an arrow, down 
the roaring rapids of the rivers. His very sub- 
sistence is snatched from the midst of toil and 
peril. He gains his food by the hardships and dan- 
gers of the chase: he wraps himself in the spoils of 
the bear, the panther, and the buffalo, and sleeps 
among the thunders of the cataract. 

No hero of ancient or modern days can surpass the 
Indian in his lofty contempt of death, and the forti- 
tude with which he sustains its cruellest infliction. 
Indeed we here behold him rising superior to the white 
man, in consequence of his peculiar education. The 
latter rushes to glorious death at the cannon's mouth; 
the former calmly contemplates its approach, and 
triumphantly endures it, amidst the varied torments 
of surrounding foes and the protracted agonies of fire. 
He even takes a pride in taunting his persecutors, and 
provoking their ingenuity of torture; and as the 
devouring flames prey on his very vitals, and the flesh 
shrinks from the sinews, he raises his last song of 
triumph, breathing the defiance of an unconquered 



410 THE SKETCH BOOK 

heart, and invoking the spirits of his fathers to witness 
that he dies without a groan. 

Notwithstanding the obloquy with which the early- 
historians have overshadowed the characters of the 
unfortunate natives, some bright gleams occasionally 
break through, which throw a degree of melancholy 
lustre on their memories. Facts are occasionally to be 
met with in the rude annals of the eastern provinces, 
which, though recorded with the coloring of prejudice 
and bigotry, yet speak for themselves; and will be 
dwelt on with applause and sympathy, when prejudice 
shall have passed away. 

In one of the homely narratives of the Indian wars 
in New England, there is a touching account of the 
desolation carried into the tribe of the Pequod Indians. 
Humanity shrinks from the cold-blooded detail of 
indiscriminate butchery. In one place we read of the 
surprisal of an Indian fort in the night, when the wig- 
wams were wrapped in flames, and the miserable 
inhabitants shot down and slain in attempting to 
escape, "all being despatched and ended in the course 
of an hour." After a series of similar transactions, 
"our soldiers," as the historian piously observes, 
"being resolved by God's assistance to make a final 
destruction of them," the unhappy savages being 
hunted from their homes and fortresses, and pursued 
with fire and sword, a scanty, but gallant band, the 
sad remnant of the Pequod warriors, with their wives 
and children, took refuge in a swamp. 

Burning with indignation, and rendered sullen by 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 411 

despair ; with hearts bursting with grief at the destruc- 
tion of their tribe, and spirits galled and sore at the 
fancied ignominy of their defeat, they refused to ask 
their lives at the hands of an insulting foe, and pre- 
ferred death to submission. 

As the night drew on they were surrounded in their 
dismal retreat, so as to render escape impracticable. 
Thus situated, their enemy ''plied them with shot all 
the time, by which means many were killed and buried 
in the mire. " In the darkness and fog that preceded 
the dawn of day some few broke through the besiegers 
and escaped into the woods : ' ' the rest were left to the 
conquerors, of which many were killed in the swamp, 
like sullen dogs who would rather, in their self- 
willedness and madness, sit still and be shot through, 
or cut to pieces, " than implore for mercy. When the 
day broke upon this handful of forlorn but dauntless 
spirits, the soldiers, we are told, entering the swamp, 
"saw several heaps of them sitting close together, upon 
whom they discharged their pieces, laden with ten or 
twelve pistol bullets at a time, putting the muzzles of 
the pieces under the boughs, within a few yards of 
them; so as, besides those that were found dead, many 
more were killed and sunk into the mire, and never 
were minded more by friend or foe." 

Can any one read this plain unvarnished tale, with- 
out admiring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, 
the loftiness of spirit, that seemed to nerve the hearts 
of these self-taught heroes, and to raise them above 
the instinctive feelings of human nature? When the 



412 THE SKETCH BOOK 

Gauls laid waste the city of Rome, they found the 
senators clothed in their robes, and seated with stern 
tranquillity in their curule chairs ; in this manner they 
suffered death without resistance or even supplication. 
Such conduct was, in them, applauded as noble and 
magnanimous ; in the hapless Indian it was reviled as 
obstinate and sullen! How truly are we the dupes of 
show and circumstance! How different is virtue, 
clothed in purple and enthroned in state, from virtue, 
naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a 
wilderness ! 

But I forbear to dwell on these gloomy pictures. 
The eastern tribes have long since disappeared; the 
forests that sheltered them have been laid low, and 
scarce any traces remain of them in the thickly- 
settled States of New England, excepting here and 
there the Indian name of a village or a stream. And 
such must, sooner or later, be the fate of those other 
tribes which skirt the frontiers, and have occasionally 
been inveigled from their forests to mingle in the wars 
of white men. In a little while, and they will go the 
way that their brethren have gone before. The few 
hordes which still linger about the shores of Huron and 
Superior, and the tributary streams of the Mississippi, 
will share the fate of those tribes that once spread over 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and lorded it along the 
proud banks of the Hudson ; of that gigantic race said 
to have existed on the borders of the Susquehanna; 
and of those various nations that flourished about the 
Potomac and the Rappahannock, and that peopled 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 413 

the forests of the vast valley of Shenandoah. They 
will vanish like a vapor from the face of the earth ; their 
very history will be lost in f orgetfulness ; and "the 
places that now know them will know them no more 
forever." Or if, perchance, some dubious memorial 
of them should survive, it may be in the romantic 
dreams of the poet, to people in imagination his glades 
and groves, like the fauns and satyrs and sylvan 
deities of antiquity. But should he venture upon the 
dark story of their wrongs and wretchedness ; should he 
tell how they were invaded, corrupted, despoiled, 
driven from their native abodes and the sepulchres of 
their fathers, hunted Hke wild beasts about the earth, 
and sent down with violence and butchery to the 
grave, posterity will either turn with horror and 
increduHty from the tale, or blush with indignation 
at the inhumanity of their forefathers. — "We are 
driven back," said an old warrior, "until we can 
retreat no farther — our hatchets are broken, our bows 
are snapped, our fires are nearly extinguished: — a 
little longer, and the white man will cease to persecute 
us — for we shall cease to exist!" 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 

AN INDIAN MEMOIR 

As monumental bronze unchanged his look: 
A soul that pity touch'd but never shook: 
Train'd from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier, 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. 

Campbell. 



i 



It is to be regretted that those early writers, who 
treated of the discovery and settlement of America, 
have not given us more particular and candid accounts 
of the remarkable characters that flourished in savage 
life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us 
are full of peculiarity and interest; they furnish us 
with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what 
man is in a comparatively primitive state, and what 
he owes to civilization. There is something of the 
charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and 
unexplored tracts of human nature ; in witnessing, as it 
were, the native growth of moral sentiment, and per- 
ceiving those generous and romantic qualities which 
have been artificially cultivated by societ}^ vegetating 
in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence. 

In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed 
414 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 415 

almost the existence, of man depends so much upon 
the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a 
studied part. The bold and pecuHar traits of native 
character are refined away, or softened down by the 
levelling influence of what is termed good-breeding; 
and he practises so many petty deceptions, and affects 
so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of 
popularity, that it is difficult to distinguish his real 
from his artificial character. The Indian, on the 
contrary, free from the restraints and refinements of 
polished life, and, in a great degree, a solitary and 
independent being, obeys the impulses of his inclina- 
tion or the dictates of his judgment; and thus the 
attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow 
singly great and striking. Society is hke a lawn, 
where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble 
eradicated, and where the eye is dehghted by the 
smiHng verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who 
would study nature in its wildness and variety must 
plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must 
stem the torrent, and dare the precipice. 

These reflections arose on casually looking through a 
volume of early colonial history, wherein are recorded, 
with great bitterness, the outrages of the Indians, and 
their wars with the settlers of New England. It is 
painful to perceive even from these partial narratives 
how the footsteps of civilization may be traced in the 
blood of the aborigines; how easily the colonists were 
moved to hostility by the lust of conquest; how mer- 
ciless and exterminating: was their warfare. The 



4i6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

imagination shrinks at the idea, how many intellectual 
beings were hunted from the earth, how many brave 
and noble hearts, of nature's sterling coinage, were 
broken down and trampled in the dust ! 

Such was the fate of Philip of Pokanoket, an 
Indian warrior, whose name was once a terror through- 
out Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the 
most distinguished of a number of contemporary 
Sachems who reigned over the Pequods, the Narra- 
gansetts, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern 
tribes, at the time of the first settlement of New Eng- 
land; a band of native untaught heroes, who made the 
most generous struggle of which human nature is 
capable ; fighting to the last gasp in the cause of their 
country, without a hope of victory or a thought of 
renown. Worthy of an age of poetry, and fit subjects 
for local story and romantic fiction, they have left 
scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, 
but stalk, like gigantic shadows, in the dim twilight of 
tradition.* 

When the pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are 
called by their descendants, first took refuge on the 
shores of the New World, from the religious persecu- 
tions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree 
gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that 
number rapidly perishing away through sickness and 
hardships; surrounded by a howling wilderness and 

* While correcting the proof sheets of this article, the author is 
informed that a celebrated English poet has nearly finished an 
heroic poem on the story of Philip of Pokanoket. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 417 

savage tribes ; exposed to the rigors of an almost arctic 
winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting cHmate; 
their minds were filled with doleful forebodings, and 
nothing preserved them from sinking into despondency 
but the strong excitement of religious enthusiasm. 
In this forlorn situation they were visited by Massa- 
soit, chief Sagamore of the Wampanoags, a powerful 
chief, who reigned over a great extent of country. 
Instead of taking advantage of the scanty number of 
the strangers, and expelling them from his territories, 
into which they had intruded, he seemed at once to 
conceive for them a generous friendship, and extended 
towards them the rites of primitive hospitality. He 
came early in the spring to their settlement of New 
Plymouth, attended by a mere handful of followers, 
entered into a solemn league of peace and amity ; sold 
them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure for 
them the good-will of his savage allies. Whatever 
may be said of Indian perfidy, it is certain that the 
integrity and good faith of Massasoit have never been 
impeached. He continued a firm and magnanimous 
friend of the white men ; suffering them to extend their 
possessions, and to strengthen themselves in the land; 
and betraying no jealousy of their increasing power 
and prosperity. Shortly before his death he came 
once more to New Plymouth, with his son Alexander, 
for the purpose of renewing the covenant of peace, and 
of securing it to his posterity. 

At this conference he endeavored to protect the 
religion of his forefathers from the encroaching zeal 



4i8 THE SKETCH BOOK 

of the missionaries; and stipulated that no further 
attempt should be made to draw off his people from 
their ancient faith ; but, finding the English obstinately 
opposed to any such condition, he mildly relinquished 
the demand. Almost the last act of his life was to 
bring his two sons, Alexander and Philip (as they had 
been named by the English), to the residence of a 
principal settler, recommending mutual kindness and 
confidence; and entreating that the same love and 
amity which had existed between the white men 
and himself might be continued afterwards with his 
children. The good old Sachem died in peace, and 
was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow 
came upon his tribe; his children remained behind 
to experience the ingratitude of white men. 

His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was 
of a quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tena- 
cious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The in- 
trusive policy and dictatorial conduct of the strangers 
excited his indignation; and he beheld with un- 
easiness their exterminating wars with the neigh- 
boring tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their 
hostility, being accused of plotting with the Narra- 
gansetts to rise against the English and drive them 
from the land. It is impossible to say whether this 
accusation was warranted by facts or was grounded on 
mere suspicion. It is evident, however, by the violent 
and overbearing measures of the settlers, that they had 
by this time begun to feel conscious of the rapid 
increase of their power, and to grow harsh and in- 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 419 

considerate in their treatment of the natives. They 
despatched an armed force to seize upon Alexander, 
and to bring him before their courts. He was traced 
to his woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting 
house, where he was reposing with a band of his 
followers, unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The 
suddenness of his arrest, and the outrage offered to his 
sovereign dignity, so preyed upon the irascible feelings 
of this proud savage, as to throw him into a raging 
fever. He was permitted to return home, on condition 
of sending his son as a pledge for his reappearance ; but 
the blow he had received was fatal, and before he had 
reached his home he fell a victim to the agonies of a 
wounded spirit. 

The successor of Alexander was Metacomet, or King 
Philip, as he was called by the settlers, on account 
of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. These, 
together with his well-known energy and enterprise, 
had rendered him an object of great jealousy and 
apprehension, and he was accused of having always 
cherished a secret and implacable hostility towards the 
whites. Such may very probably, and very naturally, 
have been the case. He considered them as originally 
but mere intruders into the country, who had pre- 
sumed upon indulgence, and were extending an 
influence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole 
race of his countrymen melting before them from the 
face of the earth ; their territories slipping from their 
hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, scattered, and 
dependent. It may be said that the soil was originally 



420 THE SKETCH BOOK 

purchased by the settlers ; but who does not know the | 
nature of Indian purchases, in the early periods of 
colonization? The Europeans always made thrifty 
bargains through their superior adroitness in traffic; 
and they gained vast accessions of territory by easily 
provoked hostilities. An uncultivated savage is 
never a nice inquirer into the refinements of law, by 
which an injury may be gradually and legally inflicted. 
Leading facts are all by which he judges; and it was 
enough for Philip to know that before the intrusion of 
the Europeans his countrymen were lords of the soil, 
and that now they were becoming vagabonds in the 
land of their fathers. 

But whatever may have been his feelings of general 
hostility, and his particular indignation at the treat- 
ment of his brother, he suppressed them for the pres- 
ent, renewed the contract with the settlers, and re- 
sided peaceably for many years at Pokanoket, or, as 
it was called by the English, Mount Hope,* the 
ancient seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspicions, 
however, which were at first but vague and indefinite, 
began to acquire form and substance; and he was at 
length charged with attempting to instigate the 
various eastern tribes to rise at once, and, by a 
simultaneous effort, to throw off the yoke of their 
oppressors. It is difficult at this distant period to 
assign the proper credit due to these early accusations 
against the Indians. There was a proneness to sus- 

* Now Bristol, Rhode Island. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 421 

picion, and an aptness to acts of violence, on the part 
of the whites, that gave weight and importance to 
every idle tale. Informers abounded where tale- 
bearing met with countenance and reward; and the 
sword was readily unsheathed when its success was 
certain, and it carved out empire. 

The only positive evidence on record against Philip 
is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, 
whose natural cunning had been quickened by a 
partial education which he had received among the 
settlers. He changed his faith and his allegiance two 
or three times, with a facility that evinced the loose- 
ness of his principles. He had acted for some time as 
Philip's confidential secretary and counsellor, and had 
enjoyed his bounty and protection. Finding, how- 
ever, that the clouds of adversity were gathering 
round his patron, he abandoned his service and went 
over to the whites; and, in order to gain their favor, 
charged his former benefactor with plotting against 
their safety. A rigorous investigation took place. 
Philip and several of his subjects submitted to be 
examined, but nothing was proved against them. 
The settlers, however, had now gone too far to retract; 
they had previously determined that Philip was a 
dangerous neighbor; they had publicly evinced their 
distrust; and had done enough to insure his hostility; 
according, therefore, to the usual mode of reasoning in 
these cases, his destruction had become necessary to 
their securit}^. Sausaman, the treacherous informer, 
was shortly afterwards found dead, in a pond, having 



422 THE SKETCH BOOK 

fallen a victim to the vengeance of his tribe. Three . 
Indians, one of whom was a friend and counsellor of 
Philip, were apprehended and tried, and, on the testi- 
mony of one very questionable witness, were con- 
demned and executed as murderers. 

This treatment of his subjects, and ignominious 
punishment of his friend, outraged the pride and 
exasperated the passions of- Philip. The bolt which 
had fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the 
gathering storm, and he determined to trust himself no 
longer in the power of the white men. The fate of his 
insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled in his 
mind; and he had a further warning in the tragical 
story of Miantonimo, a great Sachem of the Narra- 
gansetts, who, after manfully facing his accusers before 
a tribunal of the colonists, exculpating himself from a 
charge of conspiracy, and receiving assurances of 
amity, had been perfidiously dispatched at their 
instigation. Philip, therefore, gathered his fighting 
men about him; persuaded all strangers that he could 
to join his cause; sent the women and children to the 
Narragansetts for safety; and wherever he appeared 
was continually surrounded by armed warriors. 

When the two parties were thus in a state of distrust 
and irritation, the least spark was sufficient to set them 
in a flame. The Indians, having weapons in their 
hands, grew mischievous, and committed various petty 
depredations. In one of their raaraudings a warrior 
was fired on and killed by a settler. This was the 
signal for open hostilities; the Indians pressed to 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 423 

revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm of 
war resounded through the Plymouth colony. 

In the early chronicles of these dark and melancholy 
times we meet with many indications of the diseased 
state of the public mind. The gloom of religious 
abstraction, and the wildness of their situation, among 
trackless forests and savage tribes, had disposed the 
colonists to superstitious fancies, and had filled their 
imaginations with the frightful chimeras of witchcraft 
and spectrology. They were much given also to a 
belief in omens. The troubles with PhiHp and his 
Indians were preceded, we are told, by a variety of 
those awful warnings which forerun great and public 
calamities. The perfect form of an Indian bow 
appeared in the air at New Plymouth, which was 
looked upon by the inhabitants as a ''prodigious 
apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other 
towns in their neighborhood, "was heard the report of 
a great piece of ordnance, with a shaking of the earth 
and a considerable echo. " * Others were alarmed on a 
still, sunshiny morning, by the discharge of guns and 
muskets; bidlets seemed to whistle past them, and the 
noise of drums resounded in the air, seeming to pass 
away to the westward ; others fancied that they heard 
the galloping of horses over their heads; and certain 
monstrous births, which took place about the time, 
filled the superstitious in some towns with doleful 
forebodings. Many of these portentous sights and 

* The Rev. Increase Mather's History, 



424 THE SKETCH BOOK 

sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena : to the 
northern Hghts which occur vividly in those latitudes; 
the meteors which explode in the air; the casual rush- 
ing of a blast through the top branches of the forest; 
the crash of fallen trees or disrupted rocks; and to 
those other uncouth sounds and echoes which will 
sometimes strike the ear so strangely amidst the pro- 
found stillness of woodland solitudes. These may 
have startled some melancholy imaginations, may 
have been exaggerated by the love of the marvellous, 
and listened to with that avidity with which we devour 
whatever is fearful and mysterious. The universal 
currency of these superstitious fancies, and the grave 
record made of them by one of the learned men of the 
day, are strongly characteristic of the times. 

The nature of the contest that ensued was such as 
too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized 
men and savages. On the part of the whites it was 
conducted with superior skill and success; but with a 
wastefulness of the blood, and a disregard of the 
natural rights of their antagonists : on the part of the 
Indians it was waged with the desperation of men 
fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from 
peace, but humiliation, dependence, and decay. 

The events of the war are transmitted to us by a 
worthy clergyman of the time ; who dwells with horror 
and indignation on every hostile act of the Indians, 
however justifiable, whilst he mentions with applause 
the most sanguinary atrocities of the whites. Philip 
is reviled as a murderer and a traitor; without con- 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 425 

sidering that he was a true born prince, gallantly 
fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the 
wrongs of his family ; to retrieve the tottering power of 
his line ; and to deliver his native land from the oppres- 
sion of usurping strangers. 

The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, 
if such had really been formed, was worthy of a 
capacious mind, and, had it not been prematurely 
discovered, might have been overwhelming in its 
consequences. The war that actually broke out was 
but a war of detail, a mere succession of casual ex- 
ploits and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth 
the military genius and daring prowess of Philip ; and 
wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations 
that have been given of it, we can arrive at simple 
facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fer- 
tility of expedients, a contempt of suffering and hard- 
ship, and an unconquerable resolution, that command 
our sympathy and applause. 

Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, 
he threw himself into the depths of those vast and 
trackless forests that skirted the settlements, and were 
almost impervious to anything but a wild beast, or an 
Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, 1 ke the 
storm accumulating its stores of mischief in the bosom 
of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly emerge at a 
time and place least expected, carrying havoc and 
dismay into the villages. There were now and then 
indications of these impending ravages, that filled the 
minds of the colonists with awe and apprehension. 



426 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard 
from the sohtary woodland, where there was known to 
be no white man ; the cattle which had been wandering 
in the woods would sometimes return home wounded ; 
or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the 
skirts of the forests, and suddenly disappearing; as the 
lightning will sometimes be seen playing silently about 
the edge of the cloud that is brewing up the tempest. 
Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by 
the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost miracu- 
lously from their toils, and, plunging into the wilder- 
ness, would be lost to all search or inquiry, until he 
again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the 
country desolate. Among his strongholds, were the 
great swamps or morasses, which extend in some parts 
of New England ; composed of loose bogs of deep black 
mud; perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank weeds, 
the shattered and mouldering trunk's of fallen trees, 
overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uncer- 
tain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy 
wilds rendered them almost impracticable to the 
white man, though the Indian could thrid their laby- 
rinths with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, 
the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once 
driven with a band of his followers. The English did 
not dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these 
dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in 
fens and miry pits, or be shot down by lurking foes. 
They therefore invested the entrance to the Neck, and 
began to build a fort, with the thought of starving out 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 427 

the foe ; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves 
on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of the 
night, leaving the women and children behind; and 
escaped away to the westward, kindling the flames 
of. war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the 
Nipmuck country, and threatening the colony of 
Connecticut. 

In this way Philip became a theme of universal 
apprehension. The mystery in which he was envel- 
oped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil 
that walked in darkness; whose coming none could 
foresee, and against which none knew when to be on 
the alert. The whole country abounded with rumors 
and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of 
ubiquity; for, in whatever part of the widely-extended 
frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip 
was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions 
also were circulated concerning him. He was said to 
deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an old 
Indian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and 
who assisted him by her charms and incantations. 
This indeed was frequently the case with Indian 
chiefs; either through their own credulity, or to act 
upon that of their followers: and the influence of the 
prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has 
been fully evidenced in recent instances of savage 
warfare. 

At the time that Philip effected his escape from 
Pocasset, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. 
His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and he 



428 THE SKETCH BOOK 

had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this 
time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canon- 
chet, chief Sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was 
the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great Sachem, 
who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquit- 
tal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put 
to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. 
"He was the heir," says the old chronicler, "of all his 
father's pride and insolence, as well as of his malice 
towards the English"; — he certainly was the heir of 
his insults and injuries, and the legitimate avenger of 
his murder. Though he had forborne to take an 
active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip 
and his broken forces with open arms ; and gave them 
the most generous countenance and support. This at 
once drew upon him the hostility of the English ; and 
it was determined to strike a signal blow that should 
involve both the Sachems in one common ruin. A 
great force was, therefore, gathered together from 
Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, and was 
sent into the Narragansett country in the depth of 
winter, when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, 
could be traversed with comparative facility, and 
would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fast- 
nesses to the Indians. 

Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed 
the greater part of his stores, together with the old, 
the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a 
strong fortress; where he and Philip had likewise 
drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 429 

deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon 
a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, in 
the midst of a swamp ; it was constructed with a degree 
of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is 
usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indicative 
of the martial genius of these two chieftains. 

Guided by a renegado Indian, the English pene- 
trated, through December snows, to this stronghold 
and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight 
was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were- 
repulsed in their first attack;- and several of their 
bravest officers were shot down in the act of storming 
the fortress sword in hand. The assault was renewed 
with greater success. A lodgment was effected. 
The Indians were driven from one post to another. 
They disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting 
with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were 
cut to pieces; and after a long and bloody battle, 
Philip and Canonchet, with a handful of surviving 
warriors, retreated from the fort, and took refuge in 
the thickets of the surrounding forest. 

The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort ; the 
whole was soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the 
women and the children perished in the flames. This 
last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage. 
The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of 
rage and despair, uttered by the fugitive warriors, as 
they beheld the destruction of their dwellings, and 
heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. 
"The burning of the wigwams," says a contemporary 



430 THE SKETCH BOOK 

writer, ''the shrieks and cries of the women and chil- 
dren, and the yelHng of the warriors, exhibited a most 
horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly moved 
some of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously 
adds, "they were in much doubt then, and afterwards 
seriously inquired, whether burning their enemies 
alive could be consistent with humanity, and the 
benevolent principles of the Gospel."* 

The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is 
worthy of particular mention : the last scene of his life is 
one of the noblest instances on record of Indian magna- 
nimity. 

Broken down in his power and resources by this 
signal defeat, yet faithful to his ally, and to the hapless 
cause which he had espoused, he rejected all overtures 
of peace, offered on condition of betraying PI ilip, and 
his followers, and declared that "he would fight it out 
to the last man, rather than become a servant to the 
English." His home being destroyed; his country 
harassed and laid waste by the incursions of the 
conquerors; he was obliged to wander away to the 
banks of the Connecticut ; where he formed a rallying 
point to the whole body of western Indians, and laid 
waste several of the English settlements. 

Easly in the spring he departed on a hazardous expe- 
dition, with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate to 
Seaconck, in the vicinity of Mount Hope, and to pro- 
cure seed corn to plant for the sustenance of his troops. 

* MS. of the Rev. W. Ruggles. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 431 

This little band of adventurers had passed safely 
through the Pequod country, and were in the centre of 
the Narragansett, resting at some wigwams near Paw- 
tucket River, when an alarm was given of an approach- 
ing enemy. — Having but seven men by him at the 
time, Canonchet despatched two of them to the top of 
a neighboring hill, to bring intelligence of the foe. 

Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of Eng- 
lish and Indians rapidly advancing, they fled in 
breathless terror past their chieftain, without stop- 
ing to inform him of the danger. Canonchet sent 
another scout, who did the same. He then sent tw^o 
more, one of whom, hurrying back in confusion and 
affright, told him that the whole British army was 
at hand. Canonchet saw there was no choice but 
immediate flight. He attempted to escape round the 
hill, but was perceived and hotly pursued by the 
hostile Indians and a few of the fleetest of the English. 
Finding the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he 
threw off, first his blanket, then his silver-laced coat 
and belt of peag, by which his enemies knew him to be 
Canonchet, and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit. 

At length, in dashing through the river, his foot 
slipped upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his 
gun. This accident so struck him with despair, that, 
as he afterwards confessed, ''his heart and his bowels 
turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, 
void of strength." 

To such a degree was he unnerved, that, being 
seized by a Pequod Indian within a short distance of 



432 THE SKETCH BOOK 

the river, he made no resistance, though a man of 
great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on 
being made prisoner the whole pride of his spirit arose 
within him; and from that moment, we find, in the 
anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated 
flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being 
questioned by one of the English who first came up 
with him, and who had not attained his twenty-second 
year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking with lofty 
contempt upon his youthful countenance, replied, 
''You are a child — you cannot understand matters of 
war — let your brother or your chief come — him will I 
answer." 

Though repeated offers were made to him of his life, 
on condition of submitting with his nation to the Eng- 
lish, yet he rejected them with disdain, and refused to 
send any proposals of the kind to the great body of his 
subjects; saying that he knew none of them would 
comply. Being reproached with his breach of faith 
towards the whites; his boast that he would not 
deliver up a Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wam- 
panoag's nail; and his threat that he would burn the 
English alive in their houses; he disdained to justify 
himself, haughtily answering that others were as for- 
ward for the war as himself, and "he desired to hear no 
more thereof." 

So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a fidelity to 
his cause and his friend, might have touched the feel- 
ings of the generous and the brave; but Canonchet 
was an Indian; a being towards whom war had no 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 433 

courtesy, humanity no law, religion no compassion — ■ 
he was condemned to die. The last words of him that 
are recorded are worthy the greatness of his souL 
When sentence of death was passed upon him, he 
observed ''that he hked it well, for he should die before 
his heart was soft, or he had spoken anything un- 
worthy of himself. " His enemies gave him the death 
of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoningham, by three 
young Sachems of his own rank. 

The defeat at the Narragansett fortress, and the 
death of Canonchet, were fatal blows to the fortunes 
of King Philip. He made an ineffectual attempt 
to raise a head of war, by stirring up the Mohawks 
to take arms; but though possessed of the native 
talents of a statesman, his arts were counteracted 
by the superior arts of his enhghtened enemies, and 
the terror of their warHke skill began to subdue the 
resolution of the neighboring tribes. The unfortunate 
:hieftain saw himself daily stripped of power, and 
lis ranks rapidly thinning around him. Some were 
mborned by the whites ; others fell victims to hunger 
md fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which they 
A^ere harassed. His stores were all captured; his 
:hosen friends were swept away from before his eyes ; 
lis uncle was shot down by his side; his sister was 
carried into captivity; and in one of his narrow es- 
capes he was compelled to leave his beloved wife and 
Imly son to the mercy of the enemy. ' * His ruin, * ' says 
;he historian, "being thus gradually carried on, his 
nisery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; 
28 



434 THE SKETCH BOOK 

being himself made acquainted with the sense and| 
experimental feeling of the captivity of his children 
loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement'1 
of all family relations, and being stripped of all out- 
ward comforts, before his own life should be taken] 
away." ^ 

To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own 
followers began to plot against his life, that by 
sacrificing him they might purchase dishonorable, 
safety. Through treachery a number of his faithfuli 
adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian prin-j 
cess of Pocasset, a near kinswoman and confederate oni 
Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. ^ 
Wetamoe was among them at the time and attempted 
to make her escape by crossing a neighboring river: 
either exhausted by swimming, or starved by cold and| 
hunger, she was found dead and naked near the water 
side. But persecution ceased not at the grave. 
Even death, the refuge of the wretched, where the 
wicked commonly cease from troubling, was no pro- 
tection to this outcast female, whose great crime was 
affectionate fidelity to her kinsman and her friend. 
Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly, 
vengeance; the head was severed from the body and 
set upon a pole, and was thus exposed at Taunton, ta 
the view of her captive subjects. They immediately J 
recognized the features of their unfortunate queen, 
and were so affected at this barbarous spectacle that 
we are told they broke forth into the ''most horrible 
and diabolical lamentations." 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 435 

However Philip had borne up against the compH- 
cated miseries and misfortunes that surrounded him, 
the treachery of his followers seemed to wring his 
heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that 
'*he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any 
of his designs. " The spring of hope was broken — the 
ardor of enterprise was extinguished — he looked 
around, and all was danger and darkness ; there was no 
eye to pity, nor any arm that could bring deliverance. 
With a scanty band of followers, who still remained 
true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy PhiHp 
wandered back to the vicinity of Mount Hope, the 
ancient dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked about, 
like a spectre, among the scenes of former power and 
prosperity, now bereft of home, of family and friend. 
There needs no better picture of his destitute and 
piteous situation, than that furnished by the homely 
pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily enlisting the 
feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless warrior 
whom he reviles. ''Philip," he says, "like a savage 
wild beast, having been hunted by the English forces 
through the woods, above a hundred miles backward 
and forward, at last was driven to his own den upon 
Mount Hope, where he retired, with a few of his best 
friends, into a swamp, which proved but a prison to 
keep him fast till the messengers of death came by 
divine permission to execute vengeance upon him." 

Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, a 
sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We 
picture him to ourselves seated among his careworn 



436 THE SKETCH BOOK 

followers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes, 
and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness 
and dreariness of his lurking-place. Defeated, but 
not dismayed — crushed to the earth, but not humil- 
iated — he seemed to grow more haughty beneath 
disaster, and to experience a fierce satisfaction in 
draining the last dregs of bitterness. Little minds 
are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great 
minds rise above it. The very idea of submission 
awakened the fury of Philip, and he smote to death 
one of his followers who proposed an expedient of 
peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, 
and in revenge betrayed the retreat of his chieftain. 
A body of white men and Indians were immediately 
despatched to the swamp where Philip lay crouched, 
glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware of 
their approach, they had begun to surround him. In 
a little while he saw five of his trustiest followers laid 
dead at his feet; all resistance was vain; he rushed 
forth from his covert, and made a headlong attempt 
to escape, but was shot through the heart by a rene- 
gado Indian of his own nation. 

Such is the scanty story of the brave, but unfortu- 
nate King Philip; persecuted while living, slandered 
and dishonored when dead. If, however, we consider 
even the prejudiced anecdotes furnished us by his 
enemies, we may perceive in them traces of amiable 
and lofty character sufficient to awaken sympathy for 
his fate, and respect for his memory. We find that, 
amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET 437 

constant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings of 
connubial love and paternal tenderness, and to the 
generous sentiment of friendship. The captivity of 
his "beloved wife and only son" are mentioned v/ith 
exultation as causing him poignant misery: the death 
of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new 
blow on his sensibilities ; but the treachery and deser- 
tion of many of his followers, in whose affections he 
had confided, is said to have desolated his heart, and 
to have bereaved him of all further comfort. He was 
a patriot attached to his native soil — a prince true to 
his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs — a soldier, 
daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, 
of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and 
ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. Proud 
of heart, and with an untameable love of natural 
liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts of 
the forests or in the dismal and famished recesses of 
swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty 
spirit to submission, and live dependent and despised 
in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With 
heroic qualities and bold achievements that would 
have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered 
him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a 
wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went 
down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness 
and tempest — without a pitying eye to weep his fall, 
or a friendly hand to record his struggle. 



JOHN BULL 

An old song, made by an aged old pate, 
Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate, 
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, 
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate. 
With an old study fill'd full of learned old books, 
With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks, 
With an old buttery hatch worn quite off the hooks, 
And an old kitchen that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks. 
Like an old courtier, etc. 

Old Song. 

There is no species of humor in which the EngHsh 
more excel, than that which consists in caricaturing 
and giving ludicrous appellations, or nicknames. In 
this way they have whimsically designated, not merely 
individuals, but nations; and, in their fondness for 
pushing a joke, they have not spared even themselves. 
One would think that, in personifying itself, a nation 
would be apt to picture something grand, heroic, and 
imposing ; but it is characteristic of the peculiar humor 
of the English, and of their love for what is blunt, 
comic, and familiar, that they have embodied their 
national oddities in the figure of a sturdy, corpulent 
old fellow, with a three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, 
leather breeches, and stout oaken cudgel. Thus they 
have taken a singular delight in exhibiting their most 
private foibles in a laughable point of view; and have 

438 



JOHN BULL 439 

been so successful 'n their delineations, that there is 
scarcely a being in actual existence more absolutely 
present to the pubHc mind than that eccentric per- 
sonage, John Bull. 

Perhaps the continual contemplation of the charac- 
ter thus drawn of them has contributed to fix it upon 
the nation ; and thus to give reality to what at first 
may have been painted in a great measure from the 
imagination. Men are apt to acquire peculiarities 
that are continually ascribed to them. The common 
orders of English seem wonderfully captivated with 
the heau ideal which they have formed of John Bull, 
and endeavor to act up to the broad caricature that is 
perpetually before their eyes. Unluckily, they some- 
times make their boasted Bullism an apology for their 
prejudice or grossness; and this I have especially 
noticed among those truly homebred and genuine sons 
of the soil who have never migrated beyond the sound 
of Bow-bells. If one of these should be a little un- 
couth in speech, and apt to utter impertinent truths 
he confesses that he is a real John Bull, and always 
speaks his mind. If he now and then flies into an 
unreasonable burst of passion about trifles, he ob- 
serves, that John Bull is a choleric old blade, but 
then his passion is over in a moment, and he bears no 
malice. If he betrays a coarseness of taste, and an 
insensibility to foreign refinements, he thanks heaven 
for his ignorance — he is a plain John Bull, and has no 
relish for frippery and nicknacks. His very proneness 
to be gulled by strangers, and to pay extravagantly 






440 THE SKETCH BOOK J 

for absurdities, is excused under the plea of munifi-- 
cence — for John is always more generous than wise. . 

Thus, under the name of John Bull, he will contrive 
to argue every fault into a merit, and will frankly 
convict himself of being the honestest fellow ini 
existence. 5 

However little, therefore, the character may havel 
suited in the first instance, it has gradually adapted! 
itself to the nation, or rather they have adapted them 
selves to each other; and a stranger who wishes to 
study English peculiarities, may gather much valuable 
information from the innumerable portraits of John 
Bull, as exhibited in the windows of the caricature- 
shops. Still, however, he is one of those fertile 
humorists, that are continually throwing out new 
portraits, and presenting different aspects from 
different points of view; and, often as he has been 
described, I cannot resist the temptation to give a 
slight sketch of him, such as he has met my eye. 

John Bull, to all appearance, is a plain downright 
matter-of-fact fellow, with much less of poetry about 
him than rich prose. There is little of romance in his 
nature, but a vast deal of strong natural feeling. He 
excels in humor more than in wit ; is jolly rather than 
gay; melancholy rather than morose; can easily be 
moved to a sudden tear, or surprised into a broad 
laugh; but he loathes sentiment, and has no turn for 
Hght pleasantry. He is a boon companion, if you 
allow him to have his humor, and to talk about him- 
self; and he will stand by a friend in a quarrel, 



JOHN BULL 441 

with life and purse, however soundly he may be 
cudgelled. 

In this last respect, to tell the truth, he has a propen- 
sity to be somewhat too ready. He is a busy-minded 
personage, who thinks not merely for himself and 
family, but for all the country round, and is most 
generously disposed to be everybody's champion. He 
is continually volunteering his services to settle his 
neighbors' affairs, and takes it in great dudgeon if they 
engage in any matter of consequence without asking 
his advice; though he seldom engages in any friendly 
office of the kind without finishing by getting into a 
squabble with all parties, and then railing bitterly at 
their ingratitude. He unluckily took lessons in his 
youth in the noble science of defence, and having 
accomplished himself in the use of his Hmbs and his 
weapons, and become a perfect master at boxing and 
cudgel-play, he has had a troublesome life of it ever 
since. He cannot hear of a quarrel between the most 
distant of his neighbors, but he begins incontinently to 
fumble with the head of his cudgel, and consider 
whether his interest or honor does not require that he 
should meddle in the broil. Indeed he has extended 
his relations of pride and policy so completely over the 
whole country, that no event can take place, without 
infringing some of his finely-spun rights and dignities. 
Couched in his little domain, with these filaments 
stretching forth in every direction, he is like some 
choleric, bottle-bellied old spider, who has woven his 
web over a whole chamber, so that a fly cannot buzz, 



442 THE SKETCH BOOK 

nor a breeze blow, without startling his repose, and 
causing him to sally forth wrathfuUy from his den. 

Though really a good-hearted, good-tempered old 
fellow at bottom, yet he is singularly fond of being in 
the midst of contention. It is one of his peculiarities, 
however, that he only relishes the beginning of an, 
aifray; he always goes into a fight with alacrity, but 
comes out of it grumbling even when victorious; and' 
though no one fights with more obstinacy to carry a 
contested point, yet, when the battle is over, and he 
comes to the reconciliation, he is so much taken up 
with the mere shaking of hands, that he is apt to let 
his antagonist pocket all that they have been quarrel- 
ling about. It is not, therefore, fighting that he 
ought so much to be on his guard against, as making 
friends. It is difficult to cudgel him out of a farthing; 
but put him in a good humor, and you may bargain 
him out of all the money in his pocket. He is like a 
stout ship, which will weather the roughest storm 
uninjured, but roll its masts overboard in the suc- 
ceeding calm. 

He is a little fond of playing the magnifico abroad ; 
of pulling out a long purse ; flinging his money bravely 
about at boxing matches, horse races, cock fights, and 
carrying a high head among ' ' gentlemen of the fancy 
but immediately after one of these fits f extravagance, 
he will be taken with violent qualms of economy ; stop 
short at the most trivial expenditure ; talk desperately 
of being ruined and brought upon the parish; and, in 
such moods^ will not pay the smallest tradesman's bill, 



. JOHN BULL 443 

without violent altercation. He is in fact the most 
punctual and discontented paymaster in the world; 
drawing his coin out of his breeches pocket with 
infinite reluctance; paying to the uttermost farthing, 
but accompanying every guinea with a growl. 

With all his talk of economy, however, he is a 
bountiful provider, and a hospitable housekeeper. 
His economy is of a whimsical kind, its chief object 
being to devise how he may afford to be extravagant; 
for he will begrudge himself a beefsteak and pint of 
port one day, that he may roast an ox whole, broach a 
hogshead of ale, and treat all his neighbors on the 
next. 

His domestic establishment is enormously expen- 
sive: not so much from any great outward parade, as 
from the great consumption of solid beef and pudding; 
the vast number of followers he feeds and clothes; and 
his singular disposition to pay hugely for small ser- 
vices. He is a most kind and indulgent master, and, 
provided his servants humor his peculiarities, flatter 
his vanity a little now and then, and do not peculate 
grossly on him before his face, they may manage him 
to perfection. Everything that lives on him seems to 
thrive and grow fat. His house-servants are well 
paid, and pampered, and have little to do. His 
horses are sleek and lazy, and prance slowly before 
his state carriage; and his house-dogs sleep quietly 
about the door, and will hardly bark at a house- 
breaker. 

His family mansion is an old castellated manor- 



444 THE SKETCH BOOK 






house, gray with age, and of a most venerable, though i 
weather-beaten appearance. It has been built upon 
no regular plan, but is a vast accumulation of parts, 
erected in various tastes and ages. The centre bears 
evident traces of Saxon architecture, and is as solid as 
ponderous stone and old English oak can make it. 
Like all the relics of that style, it is full of obscure 
passages, intricate mazes, and dusky chambers; and 
though these have been partially lighted up in modern 
days, yet there are many places where you must still 
grope in the dark. Additions have been made to the 
original edifice from time to time, and great alterations 
have taken place; towers and battlements have been 
erected during wars and tumults : wings built in time 
of peace; and out-houses, lodges, and offices, run up 
according to the whim or convenience of different 
generations, until it has become one of the most 
spacious, rambling tenements imaginable. An entire 
wing is taken up with the family chapel, a reverend^ 
pile, that must have been exceedingly sumptuous, and, 
indeed, in spite of having been altered and simplified 
at various periods, has still a look of solemn religious 
pomp. Its walls within are stored with the monu- 
ments of John's ancestors; and it is snugly fitted up 
with soft cushions and well-lined chairs, where such of 
his family as are inclined to church services, may doze 
comfortably in the discharge of their duties. 

To keep up this chapel has cost John much money; 
but he is stanch in his religion, and piqued in his zeal, 
from the circumstance that many dissenting chapels 



JOHN BULL 445 

have been erected in his vicinity, and several of his 
j neighbors, with whom he has had quarrels, are strong 
papists. 

To do the duties of the chapel he maintains, at a 
large expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. 
He is a most learned and decorous personage, and a 
truly well-bred Christian, who always backs the old 
gentleman in his opinions, winks discreetly at his 
little peccadilloes, rebukes the children when refrac- 
tory, and is of great use in exhorting the tenants to 
read their Bibles, say their prayers, and, above all, to 
pay their rents punctually, and without grumbling. 

The family apartments are in a very antiquated 
taste, somewhat heavy, and often inconvenient, but 
full of the solemn magnificence of former times ; fitted 
up with rich, though faded tapestry, unwieldy furni- 
ture, and loads of massy gorgeous old plate. The 
vast fireplaces, ample kitchens, extensive cellars, and 
sumptuous banqueting halls, all speak of the roaring 
hospitality of days of yore, of which the m.odern 
festivity at the manor-house is but a shadow. There 
are, however, complete suites of rooms apparently 
deserted and time-worn; and towers and turrets that 
are tottering to decay; so that in high winds there is 
danger of their tumbling about the ears of the house- 
hold. 

John has frequently been advised to have the old 
edifice throughly overhauled ; and to have some of the 
useless parts pulled down, and the others strengthened 
with their materials; but the old gentleman always 



446 THE SKETCH BOOK 

grows testy on this subject. He swears the house is an 
excellent house — that it is tight and weather-proof f 
and not to be shaken by tempests — that it has stood 
for several hundred years, and, therefore, is not likely 
to tumble down now — that as to its being inconven-ij* 
ient, his family is accustomed to the inconveniences, 
and would not be comfortable without them — that as 
to its unwieldy size and irregular construction, these 
result from its being the growth of centuries, and 
being improved by the wisdom of every generation — 
that an old family, like his, requires a large house tc 
dwell in; new, upstart families may live in modern 
cottages and snug boxes ; but an old English family; 
should inhabit an old English manor-house. If you 
point out any part of the building as superfluous, he 
insists that it is material to the strength or decoration 
of the rest, and the harmony of the whole; and swears 
that the parts are so built into each other, that if you 
pull down one, you run the risk of having the whole 
about your ears. 

The secret of the matter is, that John has a great 
disposition to protect and patronize. He thinks it 
indispensable to the dignity of an ancient and honor- 
able family, to be bounteous in its appointments, and 
to be eaten up by dependents; and so, partly from 
pride, and partly from kind-heartedness, he makes it a 
rule always to give shelter and maintenance to his 
superannuated servants. 

The consequence is, that, like many other venerable 
family establishments, his manor is encumbered by old 



JOHN BULL 447 

retainers whom he cannot turn off, and an old style 
which he cannot lay down. His mansion is like a 
great hospital of invalids, and, with all its magnitude, 
is not a whit too large for its inhabitants. Not a nook 
or corner but is of use in housing some useless person- 
age. Groups of veteran beef-eaters, gouty pensioners, 
and retired heroes of the buttery and the larder, are 
seen lolling about its walls, crawling over its lawns, 
dozing under its trees, or sunning themselves upon the 
benches at its doors. Every office and out-house is 
garrisoned by these supernumeraries and their fam- 
ilies; for they are amazingly prolific, and when they 
die off, are sure to leave John a legacy of hungry 
mouths to be provided for. A mattock cannot be 
struck against the most mouldering tumble-down 
tower, but out pops, from some cranny or loop-hole, 
the gray pate of some superannuated hanger-on, who 
has lived at John's expense all his life, and makes the 
most grievous outcry at their pulling down the roof 
from over the head of a worn-out servant of the 
family. This is an appeal that John's honest heart 
never can withstand; so that a man, who has faithfully 
eaten his beef and pudding all his life, is sure to be 
rewarded with a pipe and tankard in his old days. 
A great part of his park, also, is turned into pad- 
docks, where his broken-down chargers are turned 
loose to graze undisturbed for the remainder of their 
existence — a w^orthy example of grateful recollection, 
which if some of his neighbors were to imitate, would 
not be to their discredit. Indeed, it is one of his great 



448 THE SKETCH BOOK 

pleasures to point out these old steeds to his visitors, ]| 
to dwell on their good qualities, extol their past ser 
vices, and boast, with some little vainglory, of the 
perilous adventures and hardy exploits through which 
they have carried him. 

He is given, however, to indulge his veneration for 
family usages, and family incumbrances, to a whim- 
sical extent. His manor is infested by gangs of 
gipsies; yet he will not suffer them to be driven off, 
because they have infested the place time out of mind, 
and been regular poachers upon every generation of the 
family. He will scarcely permit a dry branch to be 
lopped from the great trees that surround the house, 
lest it should molest the rooks, that have bred there 
for centuries. Owls have taken possession of the 
dovecote; but they are hereditary owls, and must not 
be disturbed. Swallows have nearly choked up every 
chimney with their nests; martins build in every 
frieze and cornice; crows flutter about the towers, and 
perch on every weathercock; and old gray-headed 
rats may be seen in every quarter of the house, running 
in and out of their holes undauntedly in broad day- 
light. In short, John has such a reverence for every- 
thing that has been long in the family, that he will not 
hear even of abuses being reformed, because they are 
good old family abuses. 

All those whims and habits have concurred wofully 
to drain the old gentleman's purse; and as he prides 
himself on punctuality in money matters, and wishes 
to maintain his credit in the neighborhood, they have 



JOHN BULL 449 

caused him great perplexity in meeting his engage- 
ments. This, too, has been increased by the alterca- 
tions and heart-burnings which are continually taking 
place in his family. His children have been brought 
up to different callings, and are of different ways of 
thinking; and as they have always been allowed to 
speak their minds freely, they do not fail to exercise 
the privilege most clamorously in the present posture 
of his affairs. Some stand up for the honor of the 
race, and are clear that the old establishment should 
be kept up in all its state, whatever may be the cost; 
others, who are more prudent and considerate, entreat 
the old gentleman to retrench his expenses, and to put 
his whole system of housekeeping on a more moderate 
footing. He has, indeed, at times, seemed inclined to 
listen to their opinions, but their wholesome advice has 
been completely defeated by the obstreperous conduct 
of one of his sons.^ This is a noisy, rattle-pated fel- 
low, of rather low habits, who neglects his business to 
frequent ale-houses — is the orator of village clubs, and 
a complete oracle among the poorest of his father's 
tenants. No sooner does he hear any of his brothers 
mention reform or retrenchment, than up he jumps, 
takes the words out of their mouths, and roars out 
for an overturn. When his tongue is once going noth- 
ing can stop it. He rants about the room ; hectors the 
old man about his spendthrift practices; ridicules his 
tastes and pursuits; insists that he shall turn the old 
servants out of doors ; give the broken-down horses to 
the hounds ; send the fat chaplain packing, and take a 

29 



450 THE SKETCH BOOK 

field-preacher in his place — nay, that the whole family : 
mansion shall be levelled with the ground, and a plain i 
one of brick and mortar built in its place. He rails 
at every social entertainment and family festivity, and 
skulks away growling to the ale-house whenever an 
equipage drives up to the door. Though constantly 
complaining of the emptiness of his purse, yet he 
scruples not to spend all his pocket-money in these 
tavern convocations, and even runs up scores for the ; 
liquor over which he preaches about his father's 
extravagance. 

It may readily be imagined how little such thwarting 
agrees with the old cavalier's fiery temperament. He 
has become so irritable, from repeated crossings, that 
the mere mention of retrenchment or reform is a signal 
for a brawl between him and the tavern oracle. As 
the latter is too sturdy and refractory for paternal 
discipline, having grown out of all fear of the cudgel, 
they have frequent scenes of wordy warfare, which at 
times run so high, that John is fain to call in the aid of 
his son Tom,^ an officer who has served abroad, but is 
at present living at home, on half -pay. This last i^ 
sure to stand by the old gentleman, right or wrong 
likes nothing so much as a racketing, roystering Hfe 
and is ready at a wink or nod, to out sabre, anc 
flourish it over the orator's head, if he dares to array 
himself against paternal authority. 

These family dissensions, as usual, have got abroad 
and are rare food for scandal in John's neighborhood. 
People begin to look wise, and shake their heads 



JOHN BULL 451 

whenever his affairs are mentioned. They all "hope 
that matters are not so bad with him as represented; 
but when a man's own children begin to rail at his 
extravagance, things must be badly managed. They 
understand he is mortgaged over head and ears, and 
is continually dabbling with money lenders. He is 
certainly an open-handed old gentleman, but they 
fear he has lived too fast; indeed, they never knew any 
good come of this fondness for hunting, racing, revel- 
ling, and prize-fighting. In short, Mr. Bull's estate is a 
very fine one, and has been in the family a long time ; 
but, for all that, they have known many finer estates 
come to the hammer." 

What is worst of all, is the effect which these pecu- 
niary embarrassments and domestic feuds have had on 
the poor man himself. Instead of that jolly round cor- 
poration, and smug rosy face, which he used to present, 
he has of late become as shrivelled and shrunk as a 
frost-bitten apple. His scarlet gold-laced waistcoat, 
which bellied out so bravely in those prosperous days 
when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely 
about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather 
breeches are all in folds and wrinkles, and apparently 
have much ado to hold up the boots that yawn on both 
sides of his once sturdy legs. 

Instead of strutting about as formerly, with his 
three-cornered hat on one side; flourishing his cudgel, 
and bringing it down every moment w4th a hearty 
thump upon the ground ; looking every one sturdily in 
the face, and trolling out a stave of a catch or a drink- 



452 THE SKETCH BOOK 

ing song ; he now goes about whistling thoughtfully to 
himself, with his head drooping down, his cudgel 
tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the 
bottom of his breeches pockets, which are evidently- 
empty.^ 

Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present ; yet 
for all this the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant 
as ever. If you drop the least expression of sympathy 
or concern, he takes fire in an instant ; swears that he is 
the richest and stoutest fellow in the country ; talks of 
laying out large sums to adorn his house or buy 
another estate ; and with a valiant swagger and grasp- 
ing of his cudgel, longs exceedingly to have another 
bout at quarter-staff. 

Though there may be something rather whimsical in 
all this, yet I confess I cannot look upon John's 
situation without strong feelings of interest. With all 
his odd humors and obstinate prejudices, he is a 
sterling-hearted old blade. He may not be so wonder- 
fully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at 
least twice as good as his neighbors represent him. 
His virtues are all his own; all plain, home-bred, and 
unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of 
his good qualities. His extravagance savors of his 
generosity; his quarrelsomeness of his courage; his 
credulity of his open faith ; his vanity of his pride ; and 
his bluntness of his sincerity. They are all the 
redundancies of a rich and liberal character. He is 
like his own oak, rough without, but sound and solid 
within; whose bark abounds with excrescences in pro- 






JOHN BULL 453 

portion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; 
and whose branches make a fearful groaning and mur- 
muring in the least storm, from their very magnitude 
and luxuriance. There is something, too, in the 
appearance of his old family mansion that is extremely 
poetical and picturesque; and, as long as it can be 
rendered comfortably habitable, I should almost 
tremble to see it meddled with, during the present 
conflict of tastes and opinions. Some of his advisers 
are no doubt good architects, that might be of service; 
but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they 
had once got to work with their mattocks on this 
venerable edifice, would never stop until they had 
brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried them- 
selves among the ruins. All that I wish is, that John's 
present troubles may teach him more prudence in 
future. That he may cease to distress his mind about 
other people's affairs ; that he may give up the fruitless 
attempt to promote the good of his neighbors, and the 
peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the 
cudgel ; that he may remain quietly at home ; ^ gradually 
get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate 
according to his fancy; husband his income — if he 
thinks proper ; bring his unruly children into order — if 
he can; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity; 
and long enjoy, on his paternal lands, a green, an 
honorable, and a merry old age. 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 

May no wolfe howle; no screech owle stir 

A wing about thy sepulchre! 

No boysterous winds or stormes come hither, 

To starve or wither 
Thy soft sweet earth ! but, like a spring, 
Love keep it ever flourishing. 

Herrick. 

In the course of an excursion through one of the 
remote counties of England, I had struck into one of 
those cross-roads that lead through the more secluded 
parts of the country, and stopped one afternoon at a 
village, the situation of which was beautifully rural 
and retired. There was an air of primitive simplicity 
about its inhabitants, not to be found in the villages 
which lie on the great coach-roads. I determined to 
pass the night there, and, having taken an early 
dinner, strolled out to enjoy the neighboring scenery. 

My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, 
soon led me to the church, which stood at a little dis- 
tance from the village. Indeed, it was an object of 
some curiosity, its old tower being completely overrun 
with ivy, so that only. here and there a jutting buttress, 
an angle of gray wall, or a fantastically carved orna- 
ment, peered through the verdant covering. It was a 
lovely evening. The early part of the day had been 

454 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 455 

dark and showery, but in the afternoon it had cleared 
up ; and though sullen clouds still hung overhead, yet 
there was a broad tract of golden sky in the west, from 
which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping 
leaves, and lit up all nature with a melancholy smile. 
It seemed Hke the parting hour of a good Christian, 
smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world, and 
giving, in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that 
he will rise again in glory. 

I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, 
and was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober- 
thoughted hour, on past scenes and early friends — on 
those who were distant and those who were dead — and 
indulging in that kind of melancholy fancying, which 
has in it something sweeter even than pleasure. 
Every now and then, the stroke of a bell from the 
neighboring tower fell on my ear; its tones were in 
unison with the scene, and, instead of jarring, chimed 
in with my feelings; and it was some time before I 
recollected that it must be tolling the knell of some 
new tenant of the tomb. 

Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the 
village green; it wound slowly along a lane; was lost, 
and reappeared through the breaks of the hedges, until 
it passed the place where I was sitting. The pall was 
supported by young girls, dressed in white; and 
another, about the age of seventeen, walked before, 
bearing a chaplet of white flowers; a token that the 
deceased was a young and unmarried female. The 
corpse was followed by the parents. They were a 



456 THE SKETCH BOOK 

venerable couple of the better order of peasantry. 
The father seemed to repress his feelings ; but his fixed 
eye, contracted brow, and deeply-furrowed face, 
showed the struggle that was passing within. His 
wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud with the 
convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow. 

I followed the funeral into the church. The bier 
was placed in the centre aisle, and the chaplet of 
white flowers, with a pair of white gloves, were hung 
over the seat which the deceased had occupied. 

Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the 
funeral service ; for who is so fortunate as never to have 
followed some one he has loved to the tomb ? but when 
performed over the remains of innocence and beauty 
thus laid low in the bloom of existence — what can be 
more affecting? At that simple, but most solemn 
consignment of the body to the grave — "Earth to 
earth ^ — ashes to ashes — dust to dust!" — the tears of 
the youthful companions of the deceased flowed 
unrestrained. The father still seemed to struggle 
with his feelings, and to comfort himself with the 
assurance that the dead are blessed which die in the 
Lord; but the mother only thought of her child as a 
flower of the field cut down and withered in the midst 
of its sweetness; she was like Rachel,^ "mourning over 
her children, and would not be comforted." 

On returning to the inn, I learned the whole story of 
the deceased. It was a simple one, and such as has 
often been told. She had been the beauty and pride 
of the village. Her father had once been an opulent 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 457 

farmer, but was reduced in circumstances. This was 
an only child, and brought up entirely at home, in the 
simplicity of rural life. She had been the pupil of the 
village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little flock. 
The good man watched over her education with 
paternal care; it was limited, and suitable to the 
sphere in which she was to move ; for he only sought to 
make her an ornament to her station in life, not to 
raise her above it. The tenderness and indulgence of 
her parents, and the exemption from ah ordinary 
occupations, had fostered a natural grace and delicacy 
of character, that accorded with the fragile loveliness 
of her form. She appeared like some tender plant of 
the garden, blooming accidentally amid the hardier 
natives of the fields. 

The superiority of her charms was felt and acknow- 
ledged by her companions, but without envy; for it was 
surpassed by the unassuming gentleness and winning 
kindness of her manners. It might be truly said of 
her; 

This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever 
Ran on the green-sward ; nothing she does or seems, 
But smacks of something greater than herself; 
Too noble for this place. ' 

The village was one of those sequestered spots, 
which still retain some vestiges of old English customs. 
It had its rural festivals and holiday pastimes, and 
still kept up some faint observance of the once popular 
rites of May. These, indeed had been promoted by 



458 THE SKETCH BOOK 

its present pastor, who was a lover of old customs, and 
one of those simple Christians that think their mission 
fulfilled by promoting joy on earth and good-will 
among mankind. Under his auspices the May-pole 
stood from year to year in the centre of the village 
green; on May-day^ it was decorated with garlands 
and streamers; and a queen or lady of the May was 
appointed, as in former times, to preside at the sports, 
and distribute the prizes and rewards. The pic- 
turesque situation of the village, and the fancifulness 
of its rustic fetes, would often attract the notice of 
casual visitors. Among these, on one May-day, was 
a young officer, whose regiment had been recently 
quartered in the neighborhood. He was charmed with 
the native taste that pervaded this village pageant; 
but, above all, with the dawning loveliness of the queen 
of May. It was the village favorite, who was crowned 
with flowers, and blushing and smiling in all the 
beautiful confusion of girlish diffidence and dehght. 
The artlessness of rural habits enabled him readily to 
make her acquaintance ; he gradually won his way into 
her intimacy ; and paid his court to her in that unthink- 
ing way in which young officers are too apt to trifle 
with rustic simplicity. 

There was nothing in his advances to startle or 
alarm. He never even talked of love: but there are 
modes of making it more eloquent than language, and 
which convey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart. 
The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand 
tendernesses which emanate from every word, and 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 459 

look, and action — these form the true eloquence of 
love, and can always be felt and understood, but 
never described. Can we wonder that they should 
readily win a heart, young, guileless, and susceptible? 
As to her, she loved almost unconsciously; she scarcely 
inquired what was the growing passion that was 
absorbing every thought and feeling, or what were to 
be its consequences. She, indeed, looked not to the 
future. When present, his looks and words occupied 
her whole attention; when absent, she thought but of 
what had passed at their recent interview. She 
would wander with him through the green lanes and 
rural scenes of the vicinity. He taught her to see new 
beauties in nature ; he talked in the language of polite 
and cultivated life, and breathed into her ear the 
witcheries of romance and poetry. 

Perhaps there could not have been a passion, 
between the sexes, more pure than this innocent girl's. 
The gallant figure of her youthful admirer, and the 
splendor of his military attire, might at first have 
charmed her eye; but it was not these that had 
captivated her heart. Her attachment had some- 
thing in it of idolatry. She looked up to him as to a 
being of a superior order. She felt in his society the 
enthusiasm of a mind naturally delicate and poetical, 
and now first awakened to a keen perception of the 
beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinctions of 
rank and fortune she thought nothing; it was the 
difference of intellect, of demxanor, of manners, from 
those of the rustic societ}^ to which she had been accus- 



460 THE SKETCH BOOK 






tomed, that elevated him in her opinion. She would 
listen to him with charmed ear and downcast look 
of mute delight, and her cheek would mantle with 
enthusiasm; or if ever she ventured a shy glance of 
timid admiration, it was as quickly withdrawn, and 
she would sigh and blush at the idea of her compara- 
tive unworthiness. 

Her lover was equally impassioned ; but his passion 
was mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had 
begun the connection in levity ; for he had often heard 
his brother officers boast of their village conquests, and 
thought some triumph of the kind necessary to his 
reputation as a man of spirit. But he was too full of 
youthful fervor. His heart had not yet been rendered 
sufficiently cold and selfish by a wandering and a 
dissipated life; it caught fire from the very flame it 
sought to kindle ; and before he was aware of the nature 
of his situation, he became really in love. 

What was he to do? There were the old obstacles 
which so incessantly occur in these heedless attach- 
ments. His rank in life — the prejudices of titled con- 
nections — his dependence upon a proud and unyielding 
father — all forbade him to think of matrimony : — but 
when he looked down upon this innocent being, so 
tender and confiding, there was a purity in her man- 
ners, a blamelessness in her life, and a beseeching 
modesty in her looks, that awed down every licentious 
feeling. In vain did he try to fortify himself by a 
thousand heartless examples of men of fashion ; and to 
chill the glow of generous sentiment with that cold 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 461 

derisive levity with which he had heard them talk of 
female virtue; whenever he came into her presence, 
she was still surrounded by that mysterious but 
impassive charm of virgin purity in whose hallowed 
sphere no guilty thought can live. 

The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to 
repair to the continent completed the confusion of his 
mind. He remained for a short time in a state of the 
most painful irresolution ; he hesitated to communicate 
the tidings, until the day for marching was at hand; 
when he gave her the intelligence in the course of an 
evening ramble. 

The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. 
It broke in at once upon her dream of felicity; she 
looked upon it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, 
and wept with the guileless simplicity of a child. He 
drew her to his bosom, and kissed the tears from her 
soft cheek; nor did he meet with a repulse, for there 
are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which 
hallow the caresses of affection. He was naturally 
impetuous ; and the sight of beauty, apparently yield- 
ing in his arms, the confidence of his power over her, 
and the dread of losing her for ever, all conspired to 
over-whelm his better feelings — he ventured to pro- 
pose that she should leave her home, and be the com- 
panion of his fortunes. 

He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and 
faltered at his own baseness ; but so innocent of mind 
was his intended victim, that she was at first at a loss 
to comprehend his meaning ; and why she should leave 



462 THE SKETCH BOOK 

her native village, and the humble roof of her parents. 
When at last the nature of his proposal flashed upon 
her pure mind, the effect was withering. She did not 
weep — she did not break forth into reproach — she 
said not a word — but she shrunk back aghast as from a 
viper; gave him a look of anguish that pierced to his 
very soul ; and, clasping her hands in agony, fled, as if 
for refuge, to her father's cottage. 

The officer retired, confounded, humiliated, and 
repentant. It is uncertain what might have been the 
result of the conflict of his feelings, had not his 
thoughts been diverted by the bustle of departure. 
New scenes, new pleasures, and new companions, 
soon dissipated his self-reproach, and stifled his 
tenderness; yet, amidst the stir of camps, the revelries 
of garrisons, the array of armies, and even the din of 
battles, his thoughts would sometimes steal back to the 
scenes of rural quiet and village simplicity — the white 
cottage — the footpath along the silver brook and up 
the hawthorn hedge, and the little village maid loiter- 
ing along it, leaning on his arm, and listening to him 
with eyes beaming with unconscious affection. 

The shock which the poor girl had received, in the 
destruction of all her ideal world, had indeed been 
cruel. Paintings and hysterics had at first shaken her 
tender frame, and were succeeded by a settled and 
pining melancholy. She had beheld from her window 
the march of the departing troops. She had seen her 
faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph, amidst the 
sound of drum and trumpet, and the pomp of arms. 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 463 

She strained a last aching gaze after him, as the morn- 
ing sun gHttered about his figure, and his plume 
waved in the breeze; he passed away like a bright 
vision from her sight, and left her all in darkness. 

It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her 
after story. It was, like other tales of love, melan- 
choly. She avoided society, and wandered out alone 
in the walks she had most frequented with her lover. 
She sought, like the stricken deer, to weep in silence 
and loneliness and brood over the barbed sorrow that 
rankled in her soul. Sometimes she would be seen 
late of an evening sitting in the porch of the village 
church; and the milkmaids, returning from the fields, 
would now and then overhear her singing some plain- 
tive ditty in the hawthorn walk. She became fervent 
in her devotions at church ; and as the old people saw 
her approach, so wasted away, yet with a hectic 
bloom, and that hallowed air which melancholy 
diffuses round the form, they would make way for her, 
as for something spiritual, and, looking after her, 
would shake their heads in gloomy foreboding. 

She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the 
tomb, but looked forward to it as a place of rest. The 
silver cord that had bound her to existence was loosed, 
and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the 
sun. If ever her gentle bosom had entertained 
resentment against her lover, it was extinguished. 
She was incapable of angry passions ; and in a moment 
of saddened tenderness, she penned him a farewell 
letter. It was couched in the simplest language, but 



464 THE SKETCH BOOK 

touching from its very simplicity. She told him that 
she was dying, and did not conceal from him that his 
conduct was the cause. She even depicted the 
sufferings which she had experienced; but concluded 
with saying, that she could not die in peace, until shq 
had sent him her forgiveness and her blessing. 

By degrees her strength declined, that she could no 
longer leave the cottage. She could only totter to the 
window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her 
enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon the land- 
scape. Still she uttered no complaint, nor imparted 
to any one the malady that was preying on her heart. 
She never even mentioned her lover's name; but 
would lay her head on her mother's bosom and weep in 
silence. Her poor parents hung, in mute anxiety,, 
over this fading blossom of their hopes, still flattering; 
themselves that it might again revive to freshness,, 
and that the bright unearthly bloom which sometimes \ 
flushed her cheek might be the promise of returning! 
health. 

In this way she was seated between them one Sun- 
day afternoon; her hands were clasped in theirs, the 
lattice was thrown open, and the soft air that stole in 
brought with it the fragrance of the clustering honey- 
suckle which her own hands had trained round the 
window. 

Her father had just been reading a chapter in the 
Bible ; it spoke of the vanity of worldly things, and of 
the joys of heaven; it seemed to have diffused comfort 
and serenity through her bosom. Her eye was fixed 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 465 

on the distant village church; the bell had tolled for 
the evening service ; the last villager was lagging into 
the porch; and everything had sunk into that hal- 
lowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her 
parents were gazing on her with yearning hearts. 
Sickness and sorrow, which pass so roughly over some 
faces, had given to hers the expression of a seraph's. 
A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. — Was she think- 
ing of her faithless lover? — or were her thoughts 
wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose 
bosom she might soon be gathered? 

Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard — a horse- 
man galloped to the cottage — he dismounted before 
the window — the poor girl gave a faint exclamation, 
and sunk back in her chair: it was her repentant 
lover ! He rushed into the house, and flew to clasp her 
to his bosom; but her wasted form — her deathlike 
countenance — so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation, — 
smote him to the soiil, and he threw himself in agony 
at her feet. She was too faint to rise — she attempted 
to extend her trembling hand — her lips moved as if she 
spoke, but no word was articulated — she looked down 
upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, — and 
closed her eyes for ever. 

Such are the particulars which I gathered of this 
village story. They are but scanty, and I am con- 
scious have little novelty to recommend them. In 
the present rage also for strange incident and high- 
seasoned narrative, they may appear trite and insig- 
nificant, but they interested me strongly at the time; 
30 



466 THE SKETCH BOOK 

and, taken in connection with the affecting ceremony, 
which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on 
my mind than many circumstances of a more striking 
nature. I have passed through the place since, and 
visited the church again, from a better motive than 
mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening; the trees 
were stripped of their foliage ; the churchyard looked 
naked and mournful, and the wind rustled coldly 
through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had 
been planted about the grave of the village favorite, 
and osiers were bent over it to keep the turf uninjured. 
The church door was open, and I stepped in. There 
hung the chaplet of flowers and the gloves, as on the 
day of the funeral : the flowers were withered, it is true, 
but care seemed to have been taken that no dust 
should soil their whiteness. I have seen many monu- 
ments, where art has exhausted its powers to awaken 
the sympathy of the spectator, but I have met withi 
none that spoke more touchingly to my heart, thani 
this simple but delicate memento of departed] 
innocence. 



THE ANGLER 

This day dame Nature seem'd in love, 

The lusty sap began to move, 

Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines 

And birds had drawn their valentines. 

The jealous trout that low did lie, 

Rose at a v/ell-dissembled flie. 

There stood my friend, with patient skill, 

Attending of his trembhng quill. 

Sir H. Wotton. 

It is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced 
to run away from his family, and betake himself to a 
seafaring life, from reading the history of Robinson 
Crusoe; and I suspect that, in Hke manner, many of 
those worthy gentlemen who are given to haunt the 
sides of pastoral streams with angle rods in hand, may 
trace the origin of their passion to the seductive pages 
of honest Izaak Walton.^ I recollect studying his 
Complete Angler several years since, in company 
with a knot of friends in America, and moreover 
that we were all completely bitten with the angling 
mania. It was early in the year ; but as soon as the 
weather w^as auspicious, and that the spring began 
to melt into the verge of summer, we took rod in 
hand and sallied into the country, as stark mad 
as was ever Don Quixote^ from reading books of 
chivalry. 

467 



468 THE SKETCH BOOK 

One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness 
of his equipments, being attired cap-a-pie for the 
enterprise. He wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, 
perplexed with half a hundred pockets ; a pair of stout 
shoes, and leathern gaiters; a basket slung on one side 
for fish; a patent rod, a landing net, and a score of 
other inconveniences, only to be found in the true 
angler's armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he was 
as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the 
country folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as 
was the steel-clad hero of La Mancha^ among the 
goatherds of the Sierra Morena. 

Our first essay was along a mountain brook, among 
the highlands of the Hudson;^ a most unfortunate 
place for the execution of those piscatory tactics which 
had been invented along the velvet margins of quiet 
English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams 
that lavish, among our romantic solitudes, unheeded 
beauties, enough to fill the sketch-book of a hunter of 
the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down 
rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the 
trees threw their broad balancing sprays, and long 
nameless weeds hung in fringes from the impending 
banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it 
would brawl and fret along a ravine in the matted 
shade of a forest, filling it with murmurs; and, after 
this termagant career, would steal forth into open day 
with the most placid demure face imaginable; as I 
have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife, after 
filling her home with uproar and ill-humor, come 



THE ANGLER 469 

dimpling out of doors, swimming and courtesy ing, 
and smiling upon all the world. 

How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at 
such times, through some bosom of green meadow- 
land among the mountains : where the quiet was only 
interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from 
the lazy cattle among the clover, or the sound of a 
woodcutter's axe from the neighboring forest. 

For miy part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of 
sport that required either patience or adroitness, and 
had not angled above half an hour before I had com- 
pletely "satisfied the sentiment," and convinced 
myself of the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that 
angling is something like poetry — a man must be born 
to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish; tangled my 
line in every tree ; lost my bait ; broke my rod ; until I 
gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day 
under the trees, reading old Izaak; satisfied that it was 
his fascinating vein of honest simplicity and rural 
feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion for 
angling. My companions, however, were more per- 
severing in their delusion. I have them at this 
moment before my eyes, stealing along the border of 
the brook, where it lay open to the day, or was merely 
fringed by shrubs and bushes. I see the bittern 
rising with hollow scream as they break in upon his 
rarely-invaded haunt; the kingfisher watching them 
suspiciously from his dry tree that overhangs the deep 
black mill-pond, in the gorge of the hills; the tortoise 
letting himself slip sideways from off the stone or log on 



470 THE SKETCH BOOK 

which he is sunning himself; and the panic-struck 
frog plumping in headlong as they approach, and 
spreading an alarm throughout the watery world 
around. 

I recollect also, that, after toiling and watching and 
creeping about for the greater part of a day, with 
scarcely any success, in spite of all our admirable ap- 
paratus, a lubberly country urchin came down from 
the hills with a rod made from a branch of a tree, a 
few yards of twine, and, as Heaven shall help me! I 
believe, a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a vile 
earthworm — and in half an hour caught more fish 
than we had nibbles throughout the day! 

But, above all, I recollect the "good, honest, whole- 
some, hungry" repast, which we made under a beech- 
tree, just by a spring of pure sweet water that stole out 
of the side of a hill; and how, when it was over, one of 
the party read old Izaak Walton's scene with the milk- 
maid, while I lay on the grass, and built castles in a 
bright pile of clouds, until I fell asleep. All this may 
appear like mere egotism; yet I cannot refrain from 
uttering these recollections, which are passing like a 
strain of music over my mind, and have been called up 
by an agreeable scene which I witnessed not long 
since. 

In a morning's stroll along the banks of the Alun, a 
beautiful little stream which flows down from the 
Welsh hills and throws itself into the Dee, my atten- 
tion was attracted to a group seated on the margin. 
On approaching, I found it to consist of a veteran 



THE ANGLER 471 

angler and two rustic disciples. The former was an 
old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes very much 
but very carefully patched, betokening poverty, 
honestly come by, and decently maintained. His 
face bore the marks of former storms, but present 
fair weather; its furrows had been worn into an ha- 
bitual smile; his iron-gray locks hung about his ears, 
and he had altogether the good-humored air of a 
constitutional philosopher who was disposed to take 
the world as it went. One of his companions was a 
ragged wight, with the skulking look of an arrant 
poacher, and I '11 warrant could find his way to any 
gentleman's fish-pond in the neighborhood in the dark- 
est night. The other was a tall, awkward country lad 
with a lounging gait, and apparently somewhat of a 
rustic beau. The old man was busy in examining the 
maw of a trout which he had just killed, to discover by 
its contents what insects were seasonable for bait ; and 
was lecturing on the subject to his companions, who 
appeared to Hsten with infinite deference. I have a 
kind feeling towards all "brothers of the angle," ever 
since I read Izaak Walton. They are men, he affirms, 
of a "mild, sweet, and peaceable spirit"; and my 
esteem for them has been increased since I met with 
an old Tretyse of fishing with the Angle, in which are 
set forth many of the maxims of their inoffensive 
fraternity. "Take good hede," sayeth this honest 
little tretyse, "that in going about your disportes ye 
open no man's gates but that ye shet them again. 
Also ye shall not use this forsayd crafti disport for no 



472 THE SKETCH BOOK 

covetousness to the encreasing and sparing of your 
money only, but principally for your solace, and to 
cause the helth of your body and specyally of your 
soule."* "' - 

I thought that I could perceive in the veteran angler 
before me an exemplification of what I had read ; and 
there was a cheerful contentedness in his looks that 
quite drew me towards him. I could not but remark 
the gallant manner in which he stumped from one part 
of the brook to another; waving his rod in the air, to 
keep the fine from dragging on the ground, or catching 
among the bushes; and the adroitness with which he 
would throw his fly to any particular place ; sometimes 
skimming it lightly along a little rapid; sometimes 
casting it into one of those dark holes made by a 
twisted root or overhanging bank, in which the large 
trout are apt to lurk. In the meanwhile he was 
giving instructions to his two disciples; showing them 
the manner in which they should handle their rods, fix 
their files, and play them along the surface of the 
stream. The scene brought to my mind the instruc- 
tions of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The country 

* From this same treatise, it would appear that angling is a more 
industrious and devout employment than it is generally consid- 
ered. — "For when ye purpose to go on your disportes in fishynge 
ye will not desyre greatlye manypers ons with you, which might 
let you of your game. And that ye may serve God devoutly in 
sayinge effectually your customable prayers. And thus doying, 
ye shall eschew and also avoyde many vices, as ydelnes, which is 
principall cause to induce man to many other vices as it is right 
well known. " 



THE ANGLER 473 

round was of that pastoral kind which Walton is fond 
of describing. It was a part of the great plain of 
Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gessford, and 
just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to swell up 
from among fresh-smelling meadows. The day, too, 
like that recorded in his work, was mild and sunshiny, 
with now and then a soft-dropping shower, that 
sowed the whole earth with diamonds. 

I soon fell into conversation with the old angler, and 
was so much entertained that, under pretext of receiv- 
ing instructions in his art, I kept company with him 
almost the whole day; wandering along the banks of 
the stream, and listening to his talk. He was very 
communicative, having all the easy garrulity of cheer- 
ful old age ; and I fancy was a little flattered by having 
an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore; for 
who does not like now and then to play the sage? 

He had been much of a rambler in his day, and 
had passed some years of his youth in America, 
particularly in Savannah, where he had entered 
into trade, and had been ruined by the indiscretion 
of a partner. He had afterwards experienced many 
ups and downs in life, until he got into the navy, 
where his leg was carried away by a cannon ball, 
at the battle of Camperdown. This was the only 
stroke of real good fortune he had ever experienced, 
for it got him a pension, which, together with 
some small paternal property, brought him in a 
revenue of nearly forty pounds. On this he retired 
to his native village, where he lived quietly and 



474 THE SKETCH BOOK 

independently; and devoted the remainder of his life 
to the "noble art of angling." 

I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, 
and he seemed to have imbibed all his simple frankness 
and prevalent good-humor. Though he had been 
sorely buffeted about the world, he was satisfied that 
the world, in itself, was good and beautiful. Though 
he had been as roughly used in different countries as a 
poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge and thicket, 
yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kindness, 
appearing to look only on the good side of things : and, 
above all, he was almost the only man I had ever met 
with who had been an unfortunate adventurer in 
America, and had honesty and magnanimity enough 
to take the fault to his own door, and not to curse the 
country. The lad that was receiving his instructions, 
I learnt, was the son and heir apparent of a fat old 
widow who kept the village inn, and of course a youth 
of some expectation, and much courted by the idle 
gentlemanlike personages of the place. In taking him 
under his care, therefore, the old man had probably an 
eye to a privileged corner in the tap-room, and an 
occasional cup of cheerful ale free of expense. 

There is certainly something in angling (if we could 
forget, which anglers are apt to do, the cruelties and 
tortures inflicted on worms and insects) that tends to 
produce a gentleness of spirit, and a pure serenity of 
mind. As the English are methodical, even in their 
recreations, and are the most scientific of sportsmen, it 
has been reduced among them to perfect rule and 



THE ANGLER 475 

system. Indeed it is an amusement peculiarly 
adapted to the mild and highly-cultivated scenery of 
England, where every roughness has been softened 
away from the landscape. It is delightful to saunter 
along those limpid streams which wander, like veins of 
silver, through the bosom of this beautiful country; 
leading one through a diversity of small home scenery ; 
sometimes winding through ornamented grounds; 
sometimes brimming along through rich pasturage, 
where the fresh green is mingled with sweet-smelling 
flowers; sometimes venturing in sight of villages and 
hamlets, and then running capriciously away into 
shady retirements. The sweetness and serenity of 
nature, and the quiet watchfulness of the sport, 
gradually bring on pleasant fits of musing; which are 
now and then agreeably interrupted by the song of a 
bird, the distant whistle of the peasant, or perhaps the 
vagary of some fish, leaping out of the still water, and 
skimming transiently about its glassy surface. "When 
I would beget content," says Izaak Walton, "and 
increase confidence in the power and wisdom and 
providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows 
by some gliding stream, and there contemplate the 
lilies that take no care, and those very many other 
little living creatures that are not only created, but 
fed (man knows not how) by the goodness of the 
God of nature, and therefore trust in him." 

I cannot forbear to give another quotation from one 
of those ancient champions of angling, which breathes 
the same innocent and happy spirit : 



476 THE SKETCH BOOK 

"Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink 

Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place, 
Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink, 

With eager bite of pike, or bleak, or dace; 
And on the world and my Creator think: 

Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t'embrace; 
And others spend their time in base excess 

Of wine, or worse, in war, or wantonness. 

Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue, 
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill; 

So I the fields and meadows green may view, 
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will, 

Among the daisies and the violets blue. 
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil." * 

On parting with the old angler, I enquired after his 
place of abode, and happening to be in the neighbor- 
hood of the village a few evenings afterwards, I had the 
curiosity to seek him out. I found him living in a 
small cottage, containing only one room, but a perfect 
curiosity in its method and arrangement. It was on 
the skirts of the village, on a green bank, a little back 
from the road, with a small garden in front, stocked 
with kitchen herbs, and adorned with a few flowers. 
The whole front of the cottage was overrun with a 
honeysuckle. On the top was a ship for a weather- 
cock. The interior was fitted up in a truly nautical 
style, his ideas of comfort and convenience having 
been acquired on the berth-deck of a man-of-war. A 
hammock was slung from the ceiling, which, in the 
daytime, was lashed up so as to take but little room. 

* J. Davors. 



THE ANGLER 477 

From the centre of the chamber hung a model of a 
ship, of his own workmanship. Two or three chairs, a 
table, and a large sea-chest, formed the principal mov- 
ables. About the wall were stuck up naval ballads, 
such as "Admiral Hosier's Ghost," *'A11 in the Downs," 
and "Tom Bowline," intermingled with pictures of sea- 
fights, among which the battle of Camperdown held a 
distinguished place. The mantelpiece was decorated 
with sea-shells; over which hung a quadrant, flanked 
by two woodcuts of most bitter-looking naval com- 
manders. His implements for angling were carefully 
disposed on nails and hooks about the room. On a 
shelf was arranged his Hbrary, containing a work on 
angling, much worn, a Bible covered with canvas, an 
odd volume or two of voyages, a nautical almanac, 
and a book of songs. 

His family consisted of a large black cat with one 
eye, and a parrot which he had caught and tamed, and 
educated himself, in the course of one of his voyages ; 
and which uttered a variety of sea phrases with the 
hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The 
establishment reminded me of that of the renowned 
Robinson Crusoe; it was kept in neat order, every- 
thing being "stowed away" with the regularity of a 
ship of war; and he informed me that he "scoured the 
deck every morning, and swept it between meals." 

I found him seated on a bench before the door, 
smoking his pipe in the soft evening sunshine. His 
cat was purring soberly on the threshold, and his 
parrot describing some strange evolutions in an iron 



478 THE SKETCH BOOK 

ring that swung in the centre of his cage. He had 
been angHng all day, and gave me a history of his 
sport with as much minuteness as a general would 
talk over a campaign ; being particularly animated in 
relating the manner in which he had taken a large 
trout which had completely tasked all his skill and 
wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine 
hostess of the inn. 

How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented 
old age; and to behold a poor fellow, like this, after 
being tempest-tost through life, safely moored in a 
snug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days ! His 
happiness, however, sprung from within himself, and 
was independent of external circumstances ; for he had 
that inexhaustible good-nature, which is the most 
precious gift of Heaven; spreading itself like oil ov^er 
the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind 
smooth and equable in the roughest weather. 

On inquiring further about him, I learned that he 
was a universal favorite in the village, and the oracle 
of the tap-room; where he delighted the rustics with 
his songs, and, like Sinbad, astonished them with his 
stories of strange lands, and shipwrecks, and sea- 
fights. He was much noticed too by gentlemen 
sportsmen of the neighborhood ; had taught several of 
them the art of angling; and was a privileged visitor 
to their kitchens. The whole tenor of his life was 
quiet and inoffensive, being principally passed about 
the neighboring streams, when the weather and season 
were favorable; and at other times he employed him- 



THE ANGLER 479 

self at home, preparing his fishing tackle for the next 
campaign, or manufacturing rods, nets, and flies, for 
his patrons and pupils among the gentry. 

He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays, 
though he generally fell asleep during the sermon. 
He had made it his particular request that when he 
died he should be buried in a green spot, which he 
could see from his seat in church, and which he had 
marked out ever since he was a boy, and had thought 
of when far from home on the raging sea, in danger of 
being food for the fishes — it was the spot where his 
father and mother had been buried. 

I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing 
weary; but I could not refrain from drawing the pic- 
ture of this worthy "brother of the angle"; who has 
made me more than ever in love with the theory, 
though I fear I shall never be adroit in the practice of 
his art : and I will conclude this rambling sketch in the 
words of honest Izaak Walton, by craving the blessing 
of St. Peter's master upon my reader, "and upon all 
that are true lovers of virtue; and dare trust in his 
providence; and be quiet; and go a angling." 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 

FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH 
KNICKERBOCKER 

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; 

And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
Forever flushing round a summer sky. 

Castle of Indolence. 

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which 
indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad 
expansion of the river denominated by the ancient 
Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they 
always prudently shortened sail, and implored the 
protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there 
lies a small market- town or rural port, which by some 
is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and 
properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This 
name was given, we are told, in former days, by the 
good housewives of the adjacent country, from the 
inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about 
the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, 
I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for 
the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from 
this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little 
valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is 

480 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 481 

one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small 
brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to 
lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, 
or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound 
that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in 
squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees 
that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered 
into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly 
quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as 
it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was pro- 
longed and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever 
I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from 
the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away 
the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more 
promising than this little valley. 

From the listless repose of the place, and the pecu- 
liar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants 
from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen 
has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, 
and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys 
throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, 
dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to 
pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the 
place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during 
the early days of the settlement; others, that an old 
Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held 
his powwows there before the country was discovered 
by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place 
still continues under the sway of some witching power, 
31 



482 THE SKETCH BOOK 

that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, 
causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are 
given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to 
trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, 
and hear music and voices in the air. The whole 
neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, 
and twilight superstitions ; stars shoot and meteors 
glare oftener across the valley than in any other part 
of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole 
nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her 
gambols. 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this 
enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in- 
chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a 
figure on horseback without a head. It is said by 
some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head 
had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some 
nameless battle during the Revolutionary War; and 
who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurry- 
ing along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the 
wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but 
extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially 
to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. 
Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of 
those parts, who have been careful in collecting and 
collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, 
allege that the body of the trooper having been buried 
in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene 
of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the 
rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 483 

the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his 
being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the 
churchyard before daybreak. 

Such is the general purport of this legendary super- 
stition, which has furnished materials for many a wild 
story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is 
known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the 
Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I 
have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabi- 
tants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by 
every one who resides there for a time. However 
wide awake they may have been before they entered 
that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to 
inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to 
grow imaginative — to dream dreams, and see appa- 
ritions. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; 
for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here 
and there embosomed in the great State of New York, 
that population, manners, and customs remain fixed; 
while the great torrent of migration and improvement, 
which is making such incessant changes in other parts 
of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. 
They are like those little nooks of still water which 
border a rapid stream ; where we may see the straw and 
bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in 
their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the 
passing current. Though many years have elapsed 
since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I 



484 THE SKETCH BOOK 

question whether I shouM not still find the same trees 
and the same families vegetating in its sheltered 
bosom. 

In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote 
period of American history, that is to say, some thirty 
years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod 
Crane ;^ who sojourned, or, as he expressed it," tarried," 
in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the 
children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecti- 
cut ;^ a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for 
the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth 
yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country 
schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not 
inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceed- 
ingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, 
hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that 
might have served for shovels, and his whole frame 
most loosely hung together. His head was small, and 
fiat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, 
and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather- 
cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way 
the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile 
of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and 
fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for 
the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or 
some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. 

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large 
room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly 
glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy- 
books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 485 

hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, 
and stakes set against the window shutters; so that, 
though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he 
would find some embarrassment in getting out; an 
idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost 
Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The 
schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant 
situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook 
running close by, and a formidable birch tree growing 
at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his 
pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be 
heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a bee- 
hive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative 
voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command ; 
or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, 
as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path 
of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious 
man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare 
the rod and spoil the child." ^ — Ichabod Crane's 
scholars certainly were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was 
one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in 
the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he 
administered justice with discrimination rather than 
severity ; taking the burthen off the backs of the weak 
and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny 
stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, 
was passed by with indulgence ; but the claims of jus- 
tice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on 
some Httle, tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch 



486 THE SKETCH BOOK 

urchin, who sulked and swelled and erew dogged and 
sullen beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his 
duty by their parents"; and he never inflicted a 
chastisement without following it by the assurance, so 
consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he would 
remember it, and thank him for it the longest day he 
had to live." 

When school hours were over, he was even the com- 
panion and playmate of the larger boys; and on 
holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller 
ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or 
good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts 
of the cupboard. Indeed it behooved him to keep on 
good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from 
his school was small, and would have been scarcely 
sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a 
huge feeder, and though lank, had the dilating powers 
of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he 
was, according to country custom in those parts, 
boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers, 
whose children he instructed. With these he lived 
successively a week at a time ; thus going the rounds of 
the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in 
a cotton handkerchief. 

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses 
of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs 
of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as 
mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself 
both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers 
occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms ; helped 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 487 

to make hay; mended the fences; took the horses to 
water ; drove the cows from pasture ; and cut wood for 
the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant 
dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in 
his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully 
gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of 
the mothers, by petting the children, particularly the 
youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so 
magnanimously the lamb did hold, ^ he would sit with a 
child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for 
whole hours together. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the 
singing-master of the neighborhood, and picked up 
many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in 
psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him, 
on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church 
gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his 
own niind, he completely carried away the palm from 
the parson . Certain it is, his voice resounded far 
above all the rest of the congregation; and there are 
peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and 
which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the 
opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday 
morning, which are said' to be legitimately descended 
from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers 
little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is 
commonly denominated "by hook and by crook, " the 
worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was 
thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of 
hcadwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. 



488 THE SKETCH BOOK 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some impor- 
tance^ in the female circle of a rural neighborhood;! 
being considered a kind of idle gentlemanlike person- 
age, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to 
the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in 
learning only to the parson. His appearance, there- 
fore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table 
of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary 
dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the 
parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, there- 
fore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the 
country damsels. How he would figure among them 
in the churchyard, between services on Sundays! 
gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that 
overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their 
amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or 
sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the 
banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bash- 
ful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying 
his superior elegance and address. 

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of 
travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local 
gossip from house to house ; so that his appearance was 
always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, 
esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, 
for he had read several books quite through, and was a 
perfect master of Cotton Mather's history of New 
England witchcraft,^ in which, by the way, he most 
firmly and potently believed. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 489 

and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvel- 
lous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally 
extraordinary; and both had been increased by his 
residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too 
gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was 
often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the 
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, 
bordering the little brook that whimpered by his 
schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful 
tales, until the gathering dusk of the evening made the 
printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he 
wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful 
woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be 
quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching 
hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of 
the whip-poor-will* from the hillside; the boding cry 
of the tree- toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary 
hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in 
the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The 
fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the 
darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of 
uncommon brightness would stream across his path; 
and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came 
winging his blundering flight against him, the poor 
varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea 
that he was struck with a witch's token. His only 
resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or 

* The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. 
It receives its name from its note, which is thought to resemble 
those words. 



490 THE SKETCH BOOK 

drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; — and 
the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their 
doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at 
hearing his nasal melody, ''in linked sweetness long 
drawn out," ^ floating from the distant hill, or along the 
dusky road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to 
pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as 
they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples 
roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen 
to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and 
haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted 
bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the 
headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hol- 
low, as they sometimes called him. He would delight 
them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the 
direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the 
air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; 
and would frighten them wofully with speculations 
upon comets and shooting stars ; and with the alarming 
fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and 
that they were half the time topsy-turvy! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly 
cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was 
all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and 
where, of course, no spectre dared to show his face, it 
was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent 
walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows 
beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a 
snowy night! — With what wistful look did he eye 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 491 

every trembling ray of light streaming across the 
waste fields from some distant window! — How often 
was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, 
which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! — 
How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the 
sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his 
feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he 
should behold some uncouth being tramping close 
behind him ! — and how often was he thrown into com- 
plete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the 
trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on 
one of his nightly scourings ! 

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, 
phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and 
though he had seen many spectres in his time, and 
been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, 
in his lonely perambulations, yet dayHght put an end 
to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleasant 
life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his 
path had not been crossed by a being that causes more 
perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the 
whole race of witches put together, and that was — a 
woman. 

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one 
evening in each week, to receive his instructions in 
psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and 
only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a 
blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; 
ripe and melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father's 
peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her 



492 THE SKETCH BOOK 

beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a 
little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her 
dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern 
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She 
wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold which her 
great-great-grandmother had brought over from 
Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time; 
and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display 
the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. 

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards 
the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempt- 
ing a morsel soon found favor in his eyes; more 
especially after he had visited her in her paternal man- 
sion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of 
a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He sel- 
dom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts 
beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within 
those everything was snug, happy, and well-condi- 
tioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not 
proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty 
abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. 
His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hud- 
son, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in 
which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A 
great elm-tree spread its broad branches over it ; at the 
foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and 
sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel; and 
then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a 
neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders 
and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 493 

vast barn, that might have served for a church; every 
window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth 
with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily 
resounding within it from morning to night ; swallows 
and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves ; and 
rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if 
watching the weather, some with their heads under 
their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others 
swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, 
were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek 
unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and 
abundance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now 
and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. 
A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an 
adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regi- 
ments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, 
and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered 
housewives, with their peevish discontented cry. 
Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that 
pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, 
clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride 
and gladness of his heart — sometimes tearing up the 
earth with his feet, and then generously calling his 
ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the 
rich morsel which he had discovered. 

The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon 
this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In 
his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every 
roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, 
and an apple in his mouth ; the pigeons were snugly put 



494 THE_SKETCH BOOK l 

to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a cover- 
let of crust; the geese were swimming in their own 
gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug 
married couples with a decent competency of onion 
sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future 
sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a 
turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its 
gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace 
of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer him- 
self lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with 
uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his 
chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. 

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he 
rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, 
the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and 
Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy 
fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van 
Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to 
inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded 
with the idea, how they might be readily turned into 
cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of 
wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. 
Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and 
presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole 
family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon 
loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles 
dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a 
pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for 
Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where. 

When he entered the house the conquest of his 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 495 

heart was complete. It was one of those spacious 
farmhouses, with high-ridged, but lowly-sloping roofs, 
built in the style handed down from the first Dutch 
settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza 
along the front, capable of being closed up in bad 
weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, va- 
rious utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in 
the neighboring river. Benches were built along the 
sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at 
one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various 
uses to which this important porch might be devoted. 
From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the 
hall, which formed the centre of the mansion and the 
place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent 
pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. 
In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be 
spun ; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from 
the loom; ears of Indian corn and strings of dried 
apples and peaches hung in gay festoons along the 
walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a 
door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, 
where the claw-footed chairs, and dark mahogany 
tables, shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accom- 
panying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert 
of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells 
decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored 
birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg 
was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner 
cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense 
treasures of old silver and well-mended china. 



496 THE SKETCH BOOK 

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these 
regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, 
and his only study was how to gain the affections of the 
peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, 
however, he had more real difficulties than generally 
fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom 
had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, 
and such like easily-conquered adversaries, to contend 
with; and had to make his way merely through gates 
of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle 
keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all 
which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his 
way to the centre of a Christmas pie ; and then the lady 
gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on 
the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a 
country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and 
caprices, which were forever presenting new difficul- 
ties and impediments ; and he had to encounter a host 
of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the 
numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to 
her heart; keeping a watchful and angry eye upon 
each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause 
against any new competitor. 

Among these the most formidable was a burly, 
roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, 
according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van 
Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with 
his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad- 
shouldered and double- jointed, with short curly black 
hair, and a bluff, but not unpleasant countenance, 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 497 

having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his 
Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had 
received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he 
was universally known. He was famed for great 
knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dex- 
terous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at 
all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendency 
which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the 
umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and 
giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting 
of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for 
either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than 
ill-will in his composition; and, with all his overbearing 
roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good- 
humor at bottom. He had three or four boon com- 
panions, who regarded him as their model, and at the 
head of whom he scoured the country, attending every 
scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold 
weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted 
with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a 
country gathering descried this well-known crest at a 
distance, whisking about among a squad of hard 
riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes 
his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm- 
houses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a 
troop of Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled 
out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the 
hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, 
"Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The 
neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, 



498 THE SKETCH BOOK 

admiration, and good will; and when any madcap 
prank, or rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity, always: 
shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at| 
the bottom of it. 

This rantipole hero^ had for some time singled out( 
the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth 
gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were; 
something like the gentle caresses and endearments of 
a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogetheri 
discourage his hopes. Certain it is„ his advances were, 
signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no incli- 
nation to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that( 
when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on 
a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was 
courting, or, as it is termed, "sparking," within, all 
other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war 
into other quarters. 

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod 
Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a 
stouter man than he would have shrunk from the com- 
petition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He 
had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perse- 
verance in his nature ; he was in form and spirit like a 
supple-jack — yielding, but tough; though he bent, he 
never broke; and though he bowed beneath the 
slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away— 
jerk! he was as erect, and carried his head as high asi 
ever. 

To have taken the field openly against his rival 
would have been madness ; for he was not a man to be 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 499 

thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy 
lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his ad- 
vances in a quiet and gently-insinuating manner. 
Under cover of his character of singing-master, he 
made frequent visits at the farmhouse ; not that he had 
anything to apprehend from the meddlesome inter- 
ference of parents, which is so often a stumbling- 
block in the path of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an 
easy indulgent soul ; he loved his daughter better even 
than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an 
excellent father, let her have her way in everything. 
His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to 
attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; 
for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish 
things, and must be looked after, but girls can take 
care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame 
bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at 
one end of the piazza, honest Bait would sit smoking 
his evening pipe at the other, watching the achieve- 
ments of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a 
sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the 
wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, 
Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by 
the side of the spring under the great elm, or saunter- 
ing along in the twihght, that hour so favorable to the 
lover's eloquence. 

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed 
and won. To me they have always been matters of 
riddle and admiration.^ Some seem to have but one 
vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a 



500 THE SKETCH BOOK 

thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand 
different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain 
the former, but a still greater proof of generalship toi 
maintain possession of the latter, for the man must* 
battle for his fortress at every door and window. 
He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore 
entitled to some renown ; but he who keeps undisputed 
sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. 
Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable 
Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane 
made his advances, the interests of the former evi- 
dently declined ; his horse was no longer seen tied at the 
palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud grad- 
ually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy 
Hollow. 

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his 
nature, would fain have carried matters to open war- 
fare, and have settled their pretensions to the lady, 
according to the mode of those most concise and 
simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore — by single 
combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior 
might of his adversary to enter the lists against him: 
he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would 
''double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of 
his own schoolhouse " ; and he was too wary to give 
him an opportunity. There was something extremely 
provoking in this obstinately pacific system;' it left 
Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of. 
rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boor- 
ish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 501 

the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his 
gang of rough riders.^ They harried his hitherto 
peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by 
stopping up the chimney ; broke into the schoolhouse 
at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe 
and window stakes, and turned everything topsy- 
turvy: so that the poor schoolmaster began to think 
all the witches in the country held their meetings 
there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took 
all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in 
presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog 
whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous man- 
ner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's to instruct 
her in psalmiody. 

In this way matters went on for some time, without 
producing any material effect on the relative situation 
of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal after- 
noon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the 
lofty stool whence he usually w^atched all the concerns 
of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a 
ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of 
justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, a 
constant terror to evil-doers ; while on the desk before 
him might be seen sundry contraband articles and pro- 
hibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle 
urchins; such as half-munched apples, popguns, 
whirligigs, fiy-cages, and whole legions of rampant 
little paper game-cocks. Apparently there had been 
some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his 
scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or 



502 THE SKETCH BOOK 

slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon 
the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned 
throughout the schoolroom. It was suddenly inter- 
rupted by the appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth 
jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a 
hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the 
back of a ragged, wild, half -broken colt, which he man- 
aged with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering 
up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to 
attend a merry-making or " quilting frolic, " to be held 
that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and having 
delivered his message with that air of importance and 
effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display 
on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the 
brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, 
full of the importance and hurry of his mission. 

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet 
schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their 
lessons, without stopping at trifles; those who were 
nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those 
who were tardy had a smart application now and then 
in the rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a 
tall word. Books were flung aside without being put 
away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, 
benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned 
loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like 
a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about 
the green, in joy at their early emancipation. 

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra 
half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 503 

best, and indeed only , suit of rusty black, and arranging 
his looks by a bit of broken looking-glass, that hung up 
in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appear- 
ance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, 
he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he 
was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the 
name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly 
mounted, issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of 
adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true 
spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks 
and equipments of my hero and his steed. The ani- 
mal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse, 
that had outlived almost everything buthisviciousness. 
He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head 
like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled 
and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and 
was glaring and spectral ; but the other had the gleam 
of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire 
and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name 
he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favor- 
ite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who 
was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, 
some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and 
broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurk- 
ing devil in him than in any young filly in the country. 
Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He 
rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees 
nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp 
elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his 
whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and, as 



504 THE SKETCH BOOK 

his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not; 
unHke the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool 
hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip 
of forehead might be called ; and the skirts of his black 
coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such 
was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they 
shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it 
was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be! 
met with in broad daylight. 

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky 
was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and 
golden livery which we always associate with the idea 
of abundance. The forests had put on their sober 
brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer 
kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes 
of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of 
wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the 
air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the 
groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive 
whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring 
stubble-field. 

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. 
In the fulness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping 
and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, 
capricious from the very profusion and variety around 
them. There was the honest cock-robin, the favorite 
game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous 
note; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable 
clouds; and the golden- winged woodpecker, with his 
crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 505 

plumage; and the cedar bird, with its red-tipt wings 
and yellow-tipt tail, and its little monteiro cap of 
feathers; and the blue-jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his 
gay light-blue coat and white under-clothes ; screaming 
and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and 
pretending to be on good terms with every songster of 
the grove. 

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever 
open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged 
with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On 
all sides he beheld vast store of apples ; some hanging 
in oppressive opulence on the trees ; some gathered into 
baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up 
in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld 
great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping 
from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise 
of cakes and hasty pudding ; and the yellow pumpkins 
lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies 
to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most 
luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant 
buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the beehive, 
and as he beheld them, soft anticipation stole over his 
mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered, and garnished 
with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled 
hand of Katrina Van Tassel. 

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts 
and "sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the 
sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the 
goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun grad- 
ually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The 



506 THE SKETCH BOOK 

wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and 
glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undula- 
tion waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the 
distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the 
sky, without a breath of air to move them. The hori- 
zon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into 
a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue 
of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray Hngered on the 
woody crests of the precipices that overhung some 
parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark- 
gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was 
loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with 
the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; 
and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still 
water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the 
air. 

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the 
castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged 
with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. 
Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun 
coats and breeches, blue-stockings, huge shoes, and 
magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk withered 
little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted short- 
gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin- 
cushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the 
outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their 
mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or 
perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innova- 
tion. The sons, in short square-skirted coats with 
rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 507 

generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially 
if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it 
being esteemed, throughout the country, as a potent 
nourisher and strengthener of the hair. 

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, 
having come to the gathering on his favorite steed 
Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and 
mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. 
He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, 
given to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in 
constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable well- 
broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. 

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of 
charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my 
hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's 
mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, 
with their luxurious display of red and white ; but the 
ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, ' 
in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up 
platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable 
kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives ! 
There was the doughty doughnut, the tenderer oly 
koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes 
and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the 
whole family of cakes. And then there were apple 
pies and peach pies and pumpkin pies ; besides sHces of 
ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes 
of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and 
quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted 
chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all 



508 THE SKETCH BOOK 

mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have 
enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending 
up its clouds of vapor from the midst — Heaven bless 
the mark ! I want breath and time to discuss this ban- 
quet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my 
story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a 
hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every 
dainty. 

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart 
dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good 
cheer ; and whose spirits rose with eating as some men's 
do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his 
large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the 
possibility that he might one day be lord of all this 
scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. 
Then, he thought, how soon he 'd turn his back upon 
the old schoolhouse; snap his fingers in the face of 
Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, 
and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that 
should dare to call him comrade! 

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his 
guests with a face dilated with content and good 
humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His 
hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being 
confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, 
a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to "fall to, and 
help themselves." 

And now the sound of the music from the common 
room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician 
was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itin- 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 509 

erant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than 
half a century. His instrument was as old and bat- 
tered as himself. The greater part of the time he 
scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every 
movement of the bow with a motion of the head; 
bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his 
foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. 

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as 
upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about 
him was idle ; and to have seen his loosely hung frame 
in full motion, and clattering about the room, you 
would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed 
patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. 
He was the admiration of all the negroes; who, having 
gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the 
neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining 
black faces at every door and window, gazing with 
delight at the scene, rolling their white eyeballs, and 
showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How 
could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated 
and joyous? the lady of his heart was his partner in the 
dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amo- 
rous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with 
love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one 
corner. 

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was 
attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with old 
Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, 
gossiping over former times, and drawing out long 
stories about the war. 



510 THE SKETCH BOOK 

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am 
speaking, was one of those highly-favored places 
which abound with chronicle and great men. The 
British and American line had run near it during 
the war; it had, therefore, been the scene of ma- 
rauding, and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and 
all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time 
had elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up 
his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in the 
indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the 
hero of every exploit. 

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue 
bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British 
frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud 
breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth dis- 
charge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be 
nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly men- 
tioned, who, in the battle of White-plains, being an 
excellent master of defence, parried a musket ball 
with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it 
whiz round the blade, and glance off at the hilt: in 
proof of which, he was ready at any time to show the 
sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several 
more that had been equally great in the field, not one 
of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable 
hand in bringing the war to a happy termination. 

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and 
apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich 
in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and 
superstitions thrive best in these sheltered long-settled 



TBE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 511 

retreats; but arc trampled underfoot by the shifting 
throng that forms the population of most of our 
country places. Besides, there is no encouragement 
for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have 
scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn 
themselves in their graves, before their surviving 
friends have travelled away from the neighborhood ; so 
that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, 
they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is 
perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts 
except in our long-established Dutch communities. 

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence 
of supernatural stories in these parts was doubtless 
owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a 
contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted 
region ; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and 
fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy 
Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's and, as 
usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful 
legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral 
trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen 
about the great tree where the unfortunate Major 
Andre ^ was taken, and which stood in the neighbor- 
hood. Some mention was made also of the woman in 
white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, 
and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before 
a storm, having perished there in the snow. The 
chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the 
favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horse- 
man, who had been heard several times of late, patrol- 



512 THE SKETCH BOOK 

ling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse 
nightly among the graves in the churchyard. 

The sequestered situation of this church seems 
always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled 
spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust- 
trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent 
whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian 
purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A 
gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, 
bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be 
caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon 
its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to 
sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least 
the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the 
church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a 
large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen 
trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far 
from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden 
bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, 
were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast 
a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned 
a fearful darkness at night. This was one of the 
favorite haunts of the headless horseman; and the 
place where he was most frequently encountered. 
The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical dis- 
believer in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning 
from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to 
get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and 
brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the 
bridge; when the horseman suddenly turned into a 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 513 

skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and 
sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. 

This story was immediately matched by a thrice 
marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light 
of the galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He 
affirmed that, on returning one night from the neigh- 
boring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by 
this midnight trooper ; that he had offered to race with 
him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, 
for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but, 
just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian 
bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. 

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with 
which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the 
listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam 
from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Icha- 
bod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts 
from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added 
many marvellous events that had taken place in his 
native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which 
he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow. 

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers 
gathered together their families in their wagons, and 
were heard for some time rattling along the hollow 
roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels 
mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and 
their light-hearted laughter, mingled with the clatter 
of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding 
fainter and fainter until they gradually died away — 
and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and 

33 



514 TBE SKETCH BOOK 

deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind according to 
the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete 
with the heiress, fully convinced that he was now on 
the high road to success. What passed at this inter- 
view I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not 
know. Something, however, I fear me, must have 
gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very 
great interval, with an air quite desolate and chop- 
fallen. — Oh these women! these women! Could that 
girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? 
• — Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a 
mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? — 
Heaven only knows, not I! — Let it suffice to say, 
Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been 
sacking a hen-roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. 
Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene 
of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he 
went straight to the stable, and with several hearty 
cuffs and kicks roused his steed most uncourteously 
from the comfortable quarters in which he was 
soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and 
oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover. 

It was the very witching time of night ^ that Icha- 
bod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travel 
homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise 
above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so 
cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as 
himself. Far below him, the Tappan Zee spread its 
dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and 
there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 515 

under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he 
could even hear the barking of the watch dog from the 
opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it was so vague and 
faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this 
faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the 
long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, 
would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away 
among the hills — but it was like a dreaming sound in 
his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occa- 
sionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps 
the guttural twang of a bull-frog, from a neighboring 
marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning sud- 
denly in his bed. 

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had 
heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his 
recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the 
stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving 
clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had 
never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, 
approaching the very place where many of the scenes 
of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the 
road stood an enormous tulip- tree, which towered like 
a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, 
and formed a kind of landmark. Its Hmbs were 
gnarled, and fantastic, large enough to form trunks 
for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, 
and rising again into the air. It was connected with 
the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had 
been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally 
known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The 



5i6 THE SKETCH BOOK 

common people regarded it with a mixture of respect 
and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate 
of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of 
strange sights and doleful lamentations told concern- 
ing it. 

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to 
whistle: he thought his whistle was answered — ^it was 
but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. 
As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw 
something white, hanging in the midst of the tree — he 
paused and ceased whistling ; but on looking more nar- 
rowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had 
been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid 
bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — his teeth chat- 
tered and his knees smote against the saddle: it was 
but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as 
they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the 
tree in safety, but new perils lay before him. 

About two hundred yards from the tree a small 
brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and 
thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's 
swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served 
for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road 
where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and 
chestnuts, matted thick with wild grapevines, threw a 
cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the 
severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the 
unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert 
of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen 
concealed who surprised him. This has ever since 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 517 

been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the 
feeUngs of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after 
dark. 

As he approached the stream his heart began to 
thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, 
gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and 
attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but 
instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal 
made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against 
the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the 
delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked 
lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his 
steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the 
opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and 
alder bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both 
whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gun- 
powder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, 
but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a sudden- 
ness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his 
head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the 
side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. 
In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the 
brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, 
and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up 
in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to 
spring upon the traveller. 

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his 
head with terror. What was to be done? To turn 
and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance 
was there of escaping ghost or gobHn, if such it was, 



5i8 THE SKETCH BOOK 

which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Sum- 
moning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded 
in stammering accents — * * Who are you ? ' ' He received 
no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more 
agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once 
more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gun- 
powder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with 
involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the 
shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and, 
with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the 
middle of the road. Though the night was dark and 
dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in 
some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a 
horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black 
horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of moles- 
tation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the 
road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, 
who had now got over his fright and waywardness. 
Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange mid- 
night companion, and bethought himself of the adven- 
ture of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now 
quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. 
The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an 
equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, 
thinking to lag behind — the other did the same. His 
heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to 
resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to 
the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. 
There was something in the moody and dogged 
silence of this pertinacious companion, that was 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 519 

mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully 
accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which 
brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in reHef 
against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a 
cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that 
he was headless! — but his horror was still more 
increased, on observing that the head, which should 
have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on 
the pommel of the saddle: his terror rose to despera- 
tion ; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gun- 
powder, hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his 
companion the slip — but the spectre started full jump 
with him. Away then they dashed, through thick 
and thin; stones flying, and sparks flashing at every 
bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the 
air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his 
horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. 

They had now reached the road which turns off to 
Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed 
with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an 
opposite turn, and plunged headlong down-hill to the 
left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded 
by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses 
the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond 
swells the green knoll on which stands the white- 
washed church. 

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful 
rider an apparent advantage in the chase ; but just as 
he had got half-way through the hollow, the girths of 
the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under 



520 THE SKETCH BOOK 

him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to 
hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save 
himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, 
when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it 
trampled underfoot by his pursuer. For a moment 
the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across 
his mind — for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was 
no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his 
haunches; and (unskilful rider that he was!) he had 
much ado to maintain his seat ; sometimes slipping on 
one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted 
on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a 
violence that he verily feared would cleave him 
asunder. 

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the 
hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wa- 
vering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the 
brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the 
walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees 
beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones's 
ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I can but 
reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." 
Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing 
close behind him ; he even fancied that he felt his hot 
breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old 
Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered 
over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite 
side ; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his 
pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of 
fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 521 

rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurHng his 
head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the 
horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his 
cranium with a tremendous crash — he was tumbled 
headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black 
steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirl- 
wind. 

The next morning the old horse was found without 
his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly 
cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did 
not make his appearance at breakfast — dinner-hour 
came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the 
schoolhouse, and strolled idly about the banks of the 
brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now 
began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor 
Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, 
and after diligent investigation they came upon his 
traces. In one part of the road leading to the church 
was found the saddle trampled in the dirt ; the tracks 
of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evi- 
dently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, 
beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the 
brook, where the water ran deep and black, was 
found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close 
beside it a shattered pumpkin. 

The brook was searched, but the body of the school- 
master was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, 
as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which 
contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of 
two shirts and a half ; two stocks for the neck ; a pair or 



522 THE SKETCH BOOK 

two of worsted stockings; an old pair of corduroy 
small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book of psalm tunes, 
full of dogs' ears; and a broken pitchpipe. As to the 
books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged 
to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History 
of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of 
dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet 
of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several 
fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of 
the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the 
poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by 
Hans Van Ripper ; who from that time forward deter- 
mined to send his children no more to school ; observing 
that he never knew any good come of this same read- 
ing and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster 
possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but a 
day or two before, he must have had about his person 
at the time of his disappearance. 

The mysterious event caused much speculation at 
the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers 
and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the 
bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had 
been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a 
whole budget of others, were called to mind ; and when 
they had diligently considered them all, and compared 
them with the symptoms of the present case, they 
shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that 
Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. 
As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody 
troubled his head any more about him. The school 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 523 

was removed to a different quarter of the hollow, and 
another pedagogue reigned in his stead. 

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New 
York on a visit several years after, and from whom 
this account of the ghostly adventure was received, 
brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was: 
still alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly 
through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and 
partly in mortification at having been suddenly dis- 
missed by the heiress ; that he had changed his quar- 
ters to a distant part of the country ; had kept school 
and studied law at the same time, had been admitted 
to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for 
the newspapers and finally had been made a justice of 
the Ten Pound Court. ' Brom Bones too, who shortly 
after his rival's disappearance conducted the blooming 
Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look 
exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod 
was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at 
the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to sus- 
pect that he knew more about the matter than he 
chose to tell. 

The old country wives, however, who are the best 
judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Icha- 
bod was spirited away by supernatural means ; and it 
is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood 
round the winter evening fire. The bridge became 
more than ever an object of superstitious awe, and 
that may be the reason why the road has been altered 
of late years, so as to approach the church by the 



524 THE SKETCH BOOK 

border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse, being 
deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be 
haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; 
and the ploughboy, loitering homeward of a still sum- 
mer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, 
chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil 
soHtudes of Sleepy Hollow. 



POSTSCRIPT 

FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER 

The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in 
which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient 
city of Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and 
most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, 
gentlemanly old fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly 
humorous face ; and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor, 
— he made such efforts to be entertaining. When his story was 
concluded, there was much laughter and approbation, particu- 
larly from two or three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep 
a greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry- 
looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows, who maintained 
a grave and rather severe face throughout: now and then folding 
his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, 
as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary 
men, who never laugh, but upon good grounds — when they have 
reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of 
the company had subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned 
one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, 
demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, 
and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, 
and what it went to prove? 

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, 
as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at 
his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the 
glass slowly to the table, observed, that the story was intended 
most logically to prove: — 

"That there is no situation in life but has its advantages 
and pleasures — provided we will but take a joke as we find 
it: 

525 



526 THE SKETCH BOOK 

"That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is 
hkely to have rough riding of it. 

"Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a , 
Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the state. " ' 

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after r 
this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the 3 
syllogism; while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed himi 
with something of a triumphant leer. At length, he observed, \ 
that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little 
on the extravagant — there were one or two points on which he had 
his doubts. 

"Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I[ 
don't believe one-half of it myself. " 

D.K. 



L'ENVOY*' 

Go, little booke, God send thee good passage, 
And specially let this be thy prayere, 
Unto them all that thee will read or hear, 
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, 
Thee to correct in any part or all. 

Chaucer's Belle Dame sans Mercie.^ 

In concluding a second volume of the Sketch Book, 
the Author cannot but express his deep sense of the 
indulgence with which his first has been received, and 
of the liberal disposition that has been evinced to treat 
him with kindness as a stranger. Even the critics, 
whatever may be said of them by others, he has found 
to be a singularly gentle and good-natured race; it is 
true that each has in turn objected to some one or two 
articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in 
the aggregate, would amount almost to a total con- 
demnation of his work ; but then he has been consoled 
by observing, that what one has particularly censured, 
another has as particularly praised; and thus, the 
encomiums being set off against the objections, he finds 
his work, upon the whole, commended far beyond its 
deserts. 

He is aware that he runs a risk of forfeiting much of 
this kind favor by not following the counsel that has 

* Closing the second volume of the London edition. 
527 



528 THE SKETCH BOOK 

been liberally bestowed upon him; for where abun- 
dance of valuable advice is given gratis, it may seem a 
man's own fault if he should go astray. He can only 
say, in his vindication, that he faithfully determined, 
for a time, to govern himself in his second volume by 
the opinions passed upon his first; but he was soon 
brought to a stand by the contrariety of excellent 
counsel. One kindly advised him to avoid the ludi- 
crous; another to shun the pathetic; a third assured 
him that he was tolerable at description, but cau- 
tioned him to leave narrative alone; while a fourth 
declared that he had a very pretty knack at turning a 
story, and was really entertaining when in a pensive 
mood, but was grievously mistaken if he imagined 
himself to possess a spirit of humor. 

Thus perplexed by the advice of his friends, who 
each in turn closed some particular path, but left him 
all the world beside to range in, he found that to fol- 
low all their counsels would, in fact, be to stand still. 
He remained for a time sadly embarrassed; when, all 
at once, the thought struck him to ramble on as he had 
begun; that his work being miscellaneous, and written 
for different humors, it could not be expected that any 
one would be pleased with the whole; but that if it 
should contain something to suit each reader, his end 
would be completely answered. Few guests sit down 
to a varied table with an equal appetite for every dish. 
One has an elegant horror of a roasted pig; another 
holds a curry or a devil in utter abomination ; a third 
cannot tolerate the ancient flavor of venison and wild- 



VENVOY 529 

fowl; and a fourth, of truly masculine stomach, looks 
with sovereign contempt on those knick-knacks, here 
and there dished up for the ladies. Thus each article 
is condemned in its turn; and yet, amidst this variety 
of appetites, seldom does a dish go away from the 
table without being tasted and relished by some one or 
other of the guests. 

With these considerations he ventures to serve up 
this second volume in the same heterogeneous way 
with his first; simply requesting the reader, if he 
should find here and there something to please him, to 
rest assured that it was written expressly for intelli- 
gent readers like himself; but entreating him, should 
he find anything to dislike, to tolerate it, as one of 
those articles which the author has been obliged to 
write for readers of a less refined taste. 

To be serious. — The author is conscious of the 
numerous faults and imperfections of his work; and 
well aware how little he is disciplined and accom- 
plished in the arts of authorship. His deficiencies are 
also increased by a diffidence arising from his peculiar 
situation. He finds himself writing in a strange land, 
and appearing before a public which he has been 
accustomed, from childhood, to regard with the high- 
est feelings of awe and reverence. He is full of solici- 
tude to deserve their approbation, yet finds that very 
solicitude continually embarrassing his powers, and 
depriving him of that ease and confidence which are 
necessary to successful exertion. Still the kindness 
with which he is treated encourages him to go on, 
34 



530 THE SKETCH BOOK 

hoping that in time he may acquire a steadier footing; 
and thus he proceeds, half venturing, half shrinking, 
surprised at his own good fortune, and wondering at 
his own temerity. 



APPENDIX 



NOTES CONCERNING WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

Toward the end of the sixth century, when Britain, under the 
dominion of the Saxons, was in a state of barbarism and idolatry, 
Pope Gregory the Great, struck with the beauty of some Anglo- 
Saxon youths exposed for sale in the market-place at Rome, 
conceived a fancy for the race, and determined to send mission- 
aries to preach the gospel among these comely but benighted 
islanders. He was encouraged to this by learning that Ethelbert, 
king of Kent, and the most potent of the Anglo-Saxon princes, 
had married Bertha, a Christian princess, only daughter of the 
king of Paris, and that she was allowed by stipulation the full 
exercise of her religion. 

The Pontiff forthwith despatched Augustine, a Roman monk, 
with forty associates, to the court of Ethelbert at Canterbury, 
to effect the conversion of the king and to obtain through him a 
foothold in the island. 

Ethelbert being distrustful received them warily, and held a 
conference in the open air. They ultimately succeeded in mak- 
ing him as good a Christian as his wife; the conversion of the 
king of course produced the conversion of his loyal subjects. 
The zeal and success of Augustine were rewarded by his being 
made archbishop of Canterbury, and being endowed with au- 
thority over all the British churches. 

One of the most prominent converts was Segebert or Sebert, 
king of the East Saxons, a nephew of Ethelbert. He reigned at 
London, of which Mellitus, one of the Roman monks who had 
come over with Augustine, was made bishop. 

Sebert, in 605, in his religious zeal, founded a monastery by 
the river side to the west of the city, on the ruins of a temple 
of Apollo, being, in fact, the origin of the present pile of West- 
minster Abbey. Great preparations were made for the consecra- 
tion of the church, which was to be dedicated to St. Peter. On 
the morning of the appointed day, Mellitus, the bishop, proceeded 
with great pomp and solemnity to perform the ceremony. On 
approaching the edifice he was met by a fisherman, who informed 
him that it was needless to proceed, as the ceremony was over. 

531 



532 APPENDIX 



The bishop stared with surprise, when the fisherman went on 
to relate, that the night before, as he was in his boat on the 
Thames, St. Peter appeared to him, and told him that he intended 
to consecrate the church himself, that very night. The apostle 
accordingly went into the church, which suddenly became 
illuminated. The ceremony was performed in sumptuous style, 
accompanied by strains of heavenly music and clouds of fragrant 
incense. After this, the apostle came into the boat and ordered 
the fisherman to cast his net. He did so, and had a miraculous 
draught of fishes; one of which he was commanded to present to 
the bishop, and to signify to him that the apostle had relieved 
him from the necessity of consecrating the church. 

Mellitus was a wary man, slow of belief, and required confirma- 
tion of the fisherman's tale. He opened the church doors, and 
beheld wax candles, crosses, holy water; oil sprinkled in various 
places, and various other traces of a grand cerem.onial. If he 
had still any lingering doubts, they were completely removed 
on the fisherman's producing the identical fish which he had been 
ordered by the apostle to present to him. To resist this would 
have been to resist ocular demonstration. The good bishop 
accordingly was convinced that the church had actually been 
consecrated by St. Peter in person; so he reverently abstained 
from proceeding further in the business. 

The foregoing tradition is said to be the reason why King 
Edward the Confessor chose this place as the site of a religious 
house which he meant to endow. He pulled down the old church 
and built another in its place in 1045. In this his remains were 
deposited in a magnificent shrine. 

The sacred edifice again underwent modifications, if not a 
reconstruction, by Henry III., in 1220, and began to assume 
its present appearance. 

Under Henry VIII. it lost its conventual character, that 
monarch turning the monks away, and seizing upon the revenues. 



RELICS OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 

A curious narrative was printed in 1688, by one of the choris- 
ters of the cathedral, who appears to have been the Paul Pry 
of the sacred edifice, giving an account of his rummaging among 
the bones of Edward the Confessor, after they had quietly 
reposed in their sepulchre upwards of six hundred years, and 
of his drawing forth the crucifix and golden chain of the deceased 
monarch. During eighteen years that he had officiated in the 
choir, it had been a common tradition, he says, among his brother 



APPENDIX 533 

choristers and the gray-headed servants of the abbey, that the 
body of King Edward was deposited in a kind of chest or coffin, 
which was indistinctly seen in the upper part of the shrine erected 
to his memory. None of the abbey gossips, however, had ven- 
tured upon a nearer inspection, until the worthy narrator, to 
gratify his curiosity, mounted to the coffin by the aid of a ladder, 
and found it to be made of wood, apparently very strong and firm, 
being secured by bands of iron. 

Subsequently, in 1685, on taking down the scaffolding used in 
the coronation of James IL, the coffin was found to be broken, 
a hole appearing in the lid, probably made, through accident, 
by the workmen. No one ventured, however, to meddle with 
the sacred depository of royal dust, until, several weeks after- 
wards, the circumstance came to the knowledge of the aforesaid 
chorister. He forthwith repaired to the abbey in company with 
two friends, of congenial tastes, who were desirous of inspecting 
the tombs. Procuring a ladder, he again mounted to the coffin, 
and found, as had been represented, a hole in the lid about 
six inches long and four inches broad, just in front of the left 
breast. Thrusting in his hand, and groping among the bones, 
he drew from underneath the shoulder a crucifix, richly adorned 
and enameled, affixed to a gold chain twenty-four inches long. 
These he showed to his inquisitive friends, who were equally 
surprised with himself. 

"At the time," says he, "when I took the cross and chain 
out of the coffin, / drew the head to the hole and viewed it, being 
very sound and firm, with the upper and nether jaws whole and 
full of teeth, and a list of gold above an inch broad, in the nature 
of a coronet, surrounding the temples. There was also in the 
coffin, white linen and gold-colored flowered silk, that looked 
indifferent fresh; but the least stress put thereto showed it was 
well nigh perished. There were all his bones, and much dust 
likewise, which I left as I found." 

It is difficult to conceive a more grotesque lesson to human 
pride than the scull of Edward the Confessor thus irreverently 
pulled about in its coffin by a prying chorister, and brought 
to grin face to face with him through a hole in the lid! 

Having satisfied his curiosity, the chorister put the crucifix 
and chain back again into the coffin, and sought the dean, to 
apprise him of his discovery. The dean not being accessible 
at the time, and fearing that the "holy treasure" might be taken 
away by other hands, he got a brother chorister to accompany 
him to the shrine about two or three hours afterwards, and in 
his presence again drew forth the relics. These he afterwards 
delivered on his knees to King James. The king subsequently had 



534 APPENDIX 

the old coffin inclosed In a new one of great strength: "each 
plank being two inches thick and cramped together with large 
iron wedges, where it now remains (1688) as a testimony of his 
pious care, that no abuse might be offered to the sacred ashes 
therein deposited." 

As the history of this shrine is full of moral, I subjoin a de- 
scription of it in modern times. "The solitary and forlorn shrine, " 
says a British writer, "now stands a mere skeleton of what it was. 
A few faint traces of its sparkling decorations inlaid on solid 
mortar catch the rays of the sun, forever set on its splendor. . . . 
Only two of the spiral pillars remain. The wooden Ionic top 
is much broken, and covered with dust. The mosaic is picked 
away in every part within reach; only the lozenges of about a 
foot square and five circular pieces of the rich marble remain. " — ■ 
Malcolm, Lond. rediv. 



INSCRIPTION ON A MONUMENT ALLUDED TO IN THE SKETCH 

Here lyes the Loyal Duke of Newcastle, and his Duchess his 
second wife, by whom he had no issue. Her name was Margaret 
Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble 
family; for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters 
virtuous. This Duchess was a wise, witty, and learned lady, 
which her many Bookes do well testify: she was a most virtuous, 
and loving, and careful wife, and was with her lord all the time of 
his banishment and miseries, and when he came home, never 
parted from him in his solitary retirement. 



In the winter time, when the days are short, the service in the 
afternoon is performed by the light of tapers. The effect is fine 
of the choir partially lighted up, while the main body of the 
cathedral and the transepts are in profound and cavernous 
darkness. The white dresses of the choristers gleam amidst the 
deep brown of the open slats and canopies; the partial illumina- 
tion makes enormous shadows from columns and screens, and 
darting into the surrounding gloom, catches here and there 
upon a sepulchral decoration, or monumental effigy. The 
swelling notes of the organ accord well with the scene. 

When the service is over, the dean is lighted to his dwelling, 
in the old conventual part of the pile, by the boys of the choir, 
in their white dresses, bearing tapers, and the procession passes 



APPENDIX 535 

through the abbey and along the shadowy cloisters, lighting up 
angles and arches and grim sepulchral monuments, and leaving 
all behind in darkness. 

On entering the cloisters at night from what is called the 
Dean's Yard, the eye ranging through a dark vaulted passage 
catches a distant view of a white marble figure reclining in a 
tomb, on which a strong glare thrown by a gas hght has quite 
a spectral effect. It is a mural monument of one of the Pultneys. 



NOTES 



Int. refers to the Introduction of this volume. L. and L. 
refers to the Life and Letters of Washington Irving, by Pierre M. 
Irving, published by Lippincott's in three volumes, 1869. 

THE author's account OF HIMSELF 

31, I. The quotation is from John Lyly's romance, Euphues, 
the style of which gave rise to the term euphuism. 

2. My native city. In 1790 the population of New York 
was about 30,000; in 1800, about 60,000. The author's birth- 
place was in William Street, between Fulton and John. The 
city occupied a small part of the lower end of what is now the 
Borough of Manhattan. 

32, I. Books of voyages. See Introduction. L. and L., 
i, 13, gives an instance of the confiscation of some of these books 
at school. 

2. I visited various parts of my own country. See Intro- 
duction for Irving's travels in America. 

3. Her mighty lakes. Irving never tired of describing the 
scenery of America. Compare passages in "Rip Van Winkle," 
etc. See Int. 

33, I. The masterpieces of art. Discover in The Sketch 
Book traces of Irving's interest in these things. See Int. for the 
effect of his first European journey. 

2. We . . . have our great men in America. In view of 
the later friendship of Irving and Dickens, it will be interesting 
to read here Chapter xvi in Martin Chuzzlewit, where Martin, 
just landed in New York, is introduced to "remarkable men." 
The irony of this paragraph, directed first at America and 
then at England, is characteristic of Irving. Compare the 
History of New York, Book 3. 

34, I. St. Peter's, etc. These places Irving had visited on 
his first tour. Irving's closest friends at the time he wrote this 
passage were three artists, Washington Allston, C. R. Leslie, and 
Stuart Newton. Read Byron's descriptions of Cascate del 
Marmore (Terni) in Childe Harold, Canto 4, and of the Coliseum 

537 



538 NOTES 

and St. Peter's in the same Canto. These were published in 
1818. Byron told a friend that he almost knew The Sketch 
Book by heart. See living's later essay on Newstead Abbey. 

THE VOYAGE 

In Irving 's day the time required for a voyage across the 
Atlantic was five or six weeks. In the following letter, written 
to Alexander Beebee, one of his friends, on his first landing in 
Bordeaux in 1804, the student will find the germ of much of 
the present essay. 

"I felt heavy-hearted on leaving the city, as you may suppose; 
but the severest moments of my departure were when I lost 
sight of the boat in which were my brothers who had accompanied 
me on board, and when the steeples of the city faded from my 
view. It seemed as if I had left the world behind me, and was 
cast among strangers without a friend, sick and solitary. I 
looked around me, saw none but strange faces, heard nothing 
but a language I could not understand, and felt 'alone amidst 
a crowd.' . . . My home-sickness wore off by degrees; I again 
looked forward with enthusiasm to the classic scenes I was to 
enjoy, the land of romance and inspiration I was to tread." 

From a letter of the same date to William Irving: "I cannot 
express the sensations I felt on first catching a glimpse of Euro- 
pean land. . . . Everything is novel and interesting to me — 
the heavy Gothic-looking buildings — the ancient churches — • 
the manners of the people — it really looks like another world." 
L. and L., i, 39 ff. 

36, I. A lengthening chain. See The Traveller, Goldsmith, 
i, 10, 

39, I. Banks of Newfoundland. An elevated plateau of 
the ocean bottom off the coast of Newfoundland, famous as a 
fishing ground. 

40, I. Deep called unto deep. A Bible phrase; compare 
Psalms xlii, 7. The entire paragraph seems formed on the pic- 
ture of this verse : 

"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterfalls; 
All thy waves and billows are gone over me." 

ROSCOE 

See Int., p. 13, for the purpose of this essay. Fifteen years later 



NOTES 539 

we find Irving urging Mr. Astor to give during his life the 
money for the Astor Library. L. and L., i, 140. 

Irving spent the greater part of the years 181 5-1 81 7 in 
Liverpool. William Roscoe was at that time a man of about 
sixty-five. His Life of Lorenzo de' Medici was very popular and 
was translated into several languages. He afterward gained 
much honor as a botanist. 

45, I. The Medici. From the thirteenth century this 
famous family was the most powerful in the Florentine state. 
Lorenzo became head of the state in 1469 and continued the 
policy of the family in devoting his wealth to the encouragement 
of literature. Later he broke down the last vestiges of demo- 
cratic liberty in the city. See Romola, George Eliot. 

2. Stony places of the world, etc. Bible phrase: Matthew 
xiii, 5. 

47, I. The living streams of knowledge. Biblical sugges- 
tion: Songs of Solomon (Canticles) iv, 15 and Revelations vii, 
17. Note how often this figure recurs in this essay, and else- 
where in The Sketch Book. 

2. Daily beauty m his life. Othello, iii, 3, 1. 156: 

** He has a daily beauty in his life 
That makes me ugly. " 

48, I. Frowns of adversity. Compare in ^4^ You Like It, 
ii, i: 

"Sweet are the uses of adversity," etc. 

49, I. Like manna. Bible reference, Exodus xvi, 15. 
52,1. Pompey's column. Pompey's Pillar. The name is a 

mere invention. The column was erected by Publius, Eparch of 
Egypt, in honor of Diocletian, in 302. 

THE WIFE 

This sketch of pathetic sentiment, in its forms of expression 
and figures of speech, will seem to many trite and out of date. 
Yet there is behind it a genuine sincerity that no one can doubt, 
and in the America of Irving's day it called forth such praise 
that his brother insisted that he should follow this vein of 
pathos in the following numbers. His Christmas essays, on 



540 NOTES 

the contrary, seemed not to meet with quite so much favor. 
This circumstance may furnish a good illustration of the 
"mutability of literature." 

58, I. I saw his grief was eloquent. For sorrow relieves 
itself by words. Note the unusual sense of eloquent, "having a 
tendency to express itself." Compare the following line from 
the Latin author, Seneca, in Hippolytus, "Light griefs are com- 
municative, great ones stupefy," — the first half in Latin being, 
Curce leves loquuntur. 



RIP VAN WINKLE 

Those who wish to study the great dramatic interpretation 
of Rip Van Winkle will find much interesting material in The 
Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson, and in Joseph Jefferson by 
William Winter. Probably the popular notion of Rip is drawn 
as largely from the play as from the tale. It should be observed 
that the story was seized upon for the stage almost as soon as it 
was published, and several actors tried their hands at it before 
Jefferson made it his own. As to the source of the story, it may 
be noticed that the fancy of extraordinarily long sleep as a basis 
for a tale is very old and widely distributed in many languages 
and may be a variant from the device of a long absence to allow 
for great changes in the wanderer's familiar haunts. Irving's 
own footnote about Der Rothhart may be due to his having busied 
himself with the study of German just before writing these 
sketches. The Hartz Mountain legend of Peter Klaus fur- 
nishes an interesting parallel. However this may be, it is 
clear that Irving had in his Sleepy Hollow memories plenty of 
material out of which his fancy might create Rip and all his 
adventures. 

66, I. Introductory Note. This note contains a reference to 
some criticism of Irving aroused by the liberties he was thought 
to have taken with old family names in his humorous History. 

Having once created the character of Diedrich Knickerbocker, 
Irving became fond of using the old gentleman whenever possible. 
As prefatory to his series of papers in The Knickerbocker Maga- 
zine in 1839-41, he addressed a letter to the editor, in which he 
says: "Diedrich Knickerbocker, sir, was one of my earliest 
and most valued friends, and the recollection of him is associated 
with some of the pleasantest scenes of my youthful days. . . . 
My first acquaintance with that great and good man . . . was 
formed on the banks of the Hudson, not far from the wizard 
region of Sleepy HoUow. " 



NOTES 541 

In L. and L., i, 170, will be found the account of the advertise- 
ment for "a small, elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black 
coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker," which 
preceded the publication of the History of New York. The 
advertisement, of course, was a hoax, employed for the purpose 
of advertising the book. 

2. Description of the Catskills. The following passage was 
written in 1851, a reminiscence of an early trip up the Hudson. 

" But of all the scenery of the Hudson, the Kaatskill Mountains 
had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination. Never 
shall I forget the effect upon me of the first view of them pre- 
dominating over a wide extent of country, part wild, woody, and 
rugged; part softened away into all the graces of cultivation. 
As we slowly floated along, I lay on the deck and watched them 
through a long summer's day, undergoing a thousand mutations 
under the magical effects of atmosphere; sometimes seeming to 
approach, at other times to recede; now almost melting into 
hazy distance, now burnished by the setting sun, until, in the 
evening, they printed themselves against the glowing sky in 
the deep purple of an Italian landscape." L. and L., i, 19. 

Irving's first visit to the Catskills was made in the summer of 
1832, thirteen years after the writing of "Rip Van Winkle." 
He wrote to his brother, Peter, " We remained here until the next 
day, visiting the waterfall, glen, etc., that are pointed out as the 
veritable haunts of Rip Van Winkle." L. and L., ii, 25. 

67, I. A village. Just before his death, Irving received a 
letter from a boy at Catskill, asking him to settle a dispute he 
had had ''with a very old gentleman" as to just what village in 
the Catskills was referred to in the story. Air Irving replied as 
follows: 

Sunnyside, February 5, 1858. 
Dear Sir: — 

I can give you no other information concerning the locali- 
ties of the story of Rip Van Winkle, than is to be gathered from 
the manuscript of Mr. Knickerbocker, published in The Sketch 
Book. Perhaps he left them purposely in doubt. I would 
advise you to defer to the opinion of the "very old gentleman" 
with whom you say you had an argument on the subject. I think 
it probable he is as accurately informed as any one on the matter. 
Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Washington Irving. 

2. Peter Stuyvesant and Fort Christina. The most "hor- 
rible battle " between the vSwedes and the Dutch under the leader- 
ship of Governor Stuyvesant is chronicled in Book 6, Chapter 7, 
of the History of New York. 



542 NOTES 

69, I. Foremost man at all country frolics for husking, etc. 

See Irving's account of the "bees," the "rustic gatherings," 
of Sleepy Hollow, in "Sleepy Hollow," Wolf erf s Roost. 

70, I. Inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. 
See Book 2, Chapter 2, History of New York, for a humorous 
account of inheritances in the Dutch villages. 

71, I. Perpetual club of the sages. Sage is a word, like junto 
in the next paragraph, which Irving was fond of using in a 
humorous, half-satirical sense. 

72, I. The smoking of Nicholas Vedder. Compare Irving's 
account, in Book 3 of the History, of the mighty smoking of 
Governor Wouter Van Twiller. 

78,1. Roysters. One would expect ro3'5/erer; but Irving uses 
the old form. The word is related to rustic, rude, noisy reveller. 

82, I. Babylonish jargon. Reference to Tower of Babel (?). 
The old French word jargon means the warbling or twittering 
of birds. See the line in The Ancient Mariner, "their sweet 
jargoning." 

84, I. Anthony's Nose. A projecting blufl on the Hudson 
below West Point, said to have been named for a trumpeter of 
Governor Stuyvesant. 

2. VanBummell. Compare the later fortunes of Ichabod Crane. 

86, I. New-England peddler. In the History of New York 
Irving seems to adopt the peddler as the type of New-England 
shrewdness, and spends a deal of humorous satire upon him. 
See also in A Chronicle of^ Wolf erf s Roost, "these swapping, 
bargaining, squatting enemies of the Manhattoes. " 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 

In this essay, as in "Roscoe, " the reader will find a serious 
and kindly patriotic purpose animating the writer. He does 
not dwell so much on the errors of English writers as on the atti- 
tude which his countrymen ought to adopt toward European 
people themselves as well as toward their writings about America. 

The reader should compare what Irving says with what other 
men of authority have said about what constitutes the true 
strength of America. Can you find that he is impartial and at 
the same time really patriotic? Can you find that some condi- 
tions he speaks of in America have changed, approaching in some 
points conditions in the Old World? 

95, I. El Dorado. "The Gilded," or the fabled land of 
gold of the Spanish adventurers in America. 

100, I. Even during the late war. War of 18 12. 



NOTES 543 

In the L. and L. the following letter appears. It was written 
by Irving's friend, Brevoort, in England, in June, 1813, and in- 
troduces Francis Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, and 
one of the best-known men of the time. The letter says: 

"It is essential that Jeffrey may imbibe a just estimate of the 
United States and its inhabitants; he goes out strongly biased 
in our favor, and the influence of his good opinion upon his return 
to this country, would go far to efface the calumnies and the 
absurdities that have been laid to our charge by ignorant travel- 
lers. Persuade him to visit Washington, and by all means to 
see the falls of Niagara; the obstacles which the war may oppose 
may be easily overcome, and at all events he may see them with- 
out ever crossing into Canada. " 

Shortly afterward Peter Irving, in Liverpool, is interesting 
himself in securing for Thomas Campbell, the poet, profitable 
terms from publishers in America. In such incidents Irving 
found the basis for his essay. 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND 

It is easy to see in what way this essay might be expected to 
appeal to the interests of American readers. In the preceding 
paper Irving himself hints at more than one such reason. But 
the essay proved to be the one which, probably as much as any 
other, brought him favor with the English themselves. William 
Godwin, a critic and author of the day, wrote to James Ogilvie, 
a young Scotch friend of Irving, of Part Two of The Sketch Book: 
"Everywhere I find in it the marks of a mind of the utmost 
elegance and refinement, a thing as you know that I was not ex- 
actly prepared to look for in an American. . . . Each of the essays 
is entitled to its appropriate praise, and the whole is such as I 
scarcely know an Englishman that could have written. The 
author powerfully conciliates to himself our kindness and affec- 
tion. But the essay on 'Rural Life in England' is incomparably 
the best. It is, I believe, all true; and one wonders, while read- 
ing, that nobody ever said this before. There is wonderful 
sweetness in it. " 

In October, 1820, in reply to an inquiry of Lady Lyttleton 
through Ambassador Rush in London, as to the real authorship of 
The Sketch Book, Irving wrote from Paris: "As to the article 
on 'Rural Life in England,' which appears to have pleased her 
ladyship, it may give it some additional interest in her eyes to 
know that though the result of general impressions received in 
various excursions about the country, yet it was sketched in 



544 NOTES 

the vicinity of Hagley just after I had been rambling about its 
grounds, and whilst its beautiful scenery, with that of the neigh- 
borhood, was fresh in my recollection." 

(Hagley in Worcestershire was the seat of Lord Lyttleton, 
where the old customs were kept up, as related by Geoffrey 
Crayon in his "Christmas Eve" and "Christmas Dinner.") L. 
and L., i, 366. 

112, I. The Flower and The Leaf. This piece is probably 
not Chaucer's. Since Irving wrote, scholars have studied Chau- 
cer and his times much more thoroughly than before. Similarly 
a few errors in "A Royal Poet" and in "Stratford" are due to 
inaccuracy of knowledge in his day. 

THE BROKEN HEART 

When first published, this story was "undoubtedly the general 
favorite. The particulars had been given to Mr. Irving by a 
young Liverpool friend, Mr. Andrew Hamilton, long since dead, 
who had himself seen the heroine, the daughter of Curran, the 
celebrated Irish barrister, 'at a masquerade,' the scene in 
which she is introduced by the author." L. and L., i, 318-19. 

118, I. Young E. Robert Emmet, bom in Dublin in 1778, 
and executed for treason in 1803. 

THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 

See 7w/., p. 14, for note on the theme of this essay. 

Satire on the "making of books" is very old. A sentence i 
often quoted is in Ecclesiastes xn, 12. | 

"All the makers of dictionaries, all compilers . . . we may 
term honest plagiarists. Call them if you please bookmakers, 
not authors, range them rather among second-hand dealers than 1 
plagiarists." Voltaire, "Plagiarism," in A Philosophical \ 
Dictionary. • 

125, I. Pure English, undefiled. Spenser, Faerie Queene, 
Book 4, Canto 2. 

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled 
On fame's eternal beadroll worthie to be fyled." 
Bible reference: Pure religion and undefiled, James i, 27. 

126, I. Line upon line, precept upon precept. Here a little 
and there a little. Bible reference, Isaiah xxviii, 10. * 

2. Witches' cauldron. Macbeth, iv, i. I 

127, I. Ponderous history revives in the shape of a romance. < 
Walter Scott's romances may have been in Irving's mind. Com- 
pare Ivanhoe. 



NOTES 545 



129, I. Paradise of Daintie Devices. A collection of songs 
published in 1576. The work of various minor poets. 

2. Sir Philip Sidney (i 554-1 586). The ideal gentleman 
and courtier of the reign of Elizabeth. He was the author of 
the earliest English prose romance, Arcadia. 

130, I. Primrose Hill and Regent's Park. Popular pleasure 
grounds in London. The Regent's Park was comparatively- 
new in Irving's day. 

2. Babbling about green fields. That is, talking pastoral 
or shepherd verse. Suggested by the famous phrase in Henry V, 
ii, 2, "a' babbled of green fields." 

131, I. Beaumont and Fletcher. Two dramatists of the 
time of Shakespeare, who worked much together. 

2. Castor and Pollux. Twin gods of Greece and Rome 
worshipped as saviours in time of need. 

3. Harlequin. The conventional character in pantomime, 
taken over from the Italian comedy of the Middle Ages. In 
the legendary plot, which was preserved in the more modern 
Christmas pantomime. Harlequin and Columbine are lovers 
favored by the fairies in spite of their persecutors, Clown and 
Pantaloon. Harlequin has come to be a general name for 
Clown. 

4. Patroclus. In the Iliad, the friend of Achilles, slain by 
Hector. 

5. Chopped bald shot. Second part of Henry IV, iii, 2. 
Falstaff says, when he is making up his regiment, "O, give me 
always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot." 

132, I. This learned Theban. Lear, iii, 4. Irving seems to 
have been fond of this phrase. He had used it in the History, 
Book I, in reference to the "renowned Dr. Darwin." The 
ancient city of Thebes was the chief center of learning and 
culture in Egypt. 

A ROYAL POET 

134, I. Charles the Second. King of England, 1660-1685. 

2. Sir Peter Lely. A Dutch portrait painter. He was court 
painter for Charles; famous for a series of "Beauties" of the 
period. 

3. Surrey. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who, with Sir 
Thomas Wyatt, introduced the sonnet and blank verse into 
England. 

4. James the First of Scotland. Born at Dunfermline, 1394; 
died 1437. 

135, I. Henry IV. King of England, 1399-1413. 



546 NOTES 



137, I. Tasso, Ferrara. Torquato Tasso, Italian poet, 
1544-95. He was at times so dangerously insane that it was 
necessary to confine him in an asylum. During lucid intervals 
of sanity he wrote some of his best work. 

2. King's Quair. The quire, four sheets of parchment or 
paper folded to form eight leaves, was a common unit of mediaeval 
manuscripts. Hence it came to mean any collection of such 
leaves, or a book. 

139, I. Consolations of Philosophy. The author, Boethius, 
475(?)-524, A.D., was a Roman statesman and philosopher. The 
Consolations, his most famous work, was translated into English 
by King Alfred and by Chaucer. 

2, Chaucer. English poet, 1344-1400, the Father of English 
poetry. The Canterbury Tales are his most famous work. 

140, I. Lustihood. An old form, frequently used by Irving, 
but changed in some places in later editions to "lustiness." 

142, I. May. May-time has always been a favorite theme 
with English poets. See Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 
Prologue, 11. 29 flf. 

143, I. Chaucer's Knight's Tale. Palamon and Arcite. 
This is a very old story. Chaucer took it from Boccaccio's Teseide. 
Fletcher used it in the drama of The Two Noble Kinsmen. 

146, I. Windsor Castle. The chief residence of English 
sovereigns, twenty-one miles southwest of London on the 
Thames. 

151, I. Christ's Kirk of the Green. This is not certainly 
a work of James. 

152, I. Vaucluse. On his first trip to Europe, Irving was 
eager to visit Vaucluse, the one-time home of Petrarch, the 
Italian poet of the fourteenth century, and Avignon, where Laura, 
to whom Petrarch addressed his sonnets, died. "After staying 
two days at Nismes I set oflf for Avignon, full of enthusiasm at 
the thoughts of visiting the tomb of Laura, and of wandering 
among the wild retreats and romantic solitudes of Vaucluse." 
L. and L., i, 48. But his enthusiasm was to suffer disappoint- 
ment. During the Revolution, the church of the Cordeliers and 
the tomb had been destroyed, and the journey to Vaucluse was 
made impracticable by the activity of the French spies. It is 
probably, therefore, one of his dreams that he here makes a part 
of the real travels of Geoffrey Crayon. 

2. Loretto. Also Loreto, a famous shrine in Loreto, Italy. 

THE COUNTRY CHURCH 

With the picture of the folk leaving the church, here given, 



NOTES 547 

it would be well to compare that drawn by George Eliot in Silas 
Marner, ch. xvi. 

154, I. To see the hounds throw ofif. To see the start of 
the hunt. 

157, I. Lord Mayor's Day. November 9, when the Lord 
Mayor assumes office. In the city of London the Lord Mayor 
takes precedence even of the royal princes. The procession on 
Lord Mayor's Day is the occasion of lavish expenditure, formerly 
of considerably more interest to Londoners than now. See 
also in "Little Britain." 

160, I. Excellent food for the poor. Compare the satire 
on this theme in Dickens's Oliver Twist, ch. ii. 

2. Rapt out of sight in a whirlwind. Reference to Eli^'ah 
in 2. Kings, ii, i. 

the'widow and her son 

161, I. Bridal of the earth and sky. From The Temple, 
by George Herbert, a religious poet of the seventeenth 
century. 

164,1. The well-fed priest. Irving's pictures of the clergy- 
men in these papers should be compared with each other, and 
with those in Chaucer's Prologue, and in The Deserted Village. 
The letter to Jesse Merwin, referred to under "Sleepy Hollow," 
contains a different picture. 

165, I . Don't take it so sorely to heart. For a similar picture 
and simple pathos see Dickens's Bleak House, end of Ch. 
viii. 

167, I. Press-gang. A squad of men commissioned to seize 
any able-bodied man, especially a seaman, and compel him to 
serve on board a man-of-war. During the period from 1802- 
181 5 the British government made extensive use of the "im- 
pressment." American seamen were seized, a circumstance 
which helped to bring on the War of 18 12. The memory of the 
press-gang would be fresh in both England and America at the 
time this was written. 

169, I. Lonely and in prison. Compare Matthew xxv, 36. 

A SUNDAY IN LONDON 

This little fragment is of interest as a contrast to the two 
papers which precede it. The sentiment of the last paragraph 
is perhaps commonplace now, but it was not in 1820. The moral 
advantages of parks had not become so evident. 




548 



NOTES 549 



THE BOAR S HEAD TAVERN 

Compare with this sketch "The Bermudas, A Shakespearean 
Research," in Wolfert's Roost, the Knickerbocker Miscellanies. 

References to Falstaff and his friends are so frequent in Irv- 
ing 's letters as to prove that the subject of this essay had always 
been a favorite with him. Several letters of 1818 refer to a 
picture by Leslie showing Anne Page and Master Slender, with 
Falstaff and Shallow in the background, in which Irving took 
much interest. See note under "Stratford." 

177, I. Old Boar's Head Tavern. A statue of King William 
IV (1830-31) now stands on the site of this famous tavern. 

2. Dame Quickly. The Hostess of the Boar's Head, in 
Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry /Fand V. 

178, I. Cock Lane. A supposed ghost appearance took 
place in Cock Lane, London, in 1762. Dr. Samuel Johnson 
was one of the investigators of the fraud, the perpetrators of 
which were punished. 

2. Little Britain. See essay, p. 349. 

3. Old Jewry. A street near Mercer's Hall, where the Jews 
were settled before the persecution in 1291. 

4. Giants of Guildhall. See note under "Little Britain." 

5. Jack Cade. The leader of the Kentish Rebellion in 1450. 

6. Eastcheap. Cheap is from an old English word meaning 
Market. 

I'jgj I. London Stone. A relic now embedded in the wall 
of St. Swithin's church in London. It is believed to be a frag- 
ment of the old central Roman milestone, from which all dis- 
tances were measured. 

2. The Monument. A column in Fish Street, erected by 
the famous builder, Wren, to commemorate the Great Fire of 
1666, which broke out in Pudding Lane. 

180, I. Pistol. Auncient (Ensign) Pistol, the blusterer who 
marries Dame Quickly. 

181, I. Billingsgate. The district of the fishmarkets below 
London Bridge. The present meaning of the word, "abusive 
language, " has its origin in the coarse language proverbial among 
the fishwives. 

182, I. Cockney. A rather contemptuous term for a person 
native of the old City of London, born within the sound of the 
bells of the church of St. Mary le Bow. It is probably from an 
old word for the egg of a common fowl, afterward applied to a 
petted, spoiled child, hence an effeminate townsman. Certain 
peculiarities of pronunciation mark the Cockney. 

187, I. Scriblerius. The reference is to Martinus Scrib- 



550 NOTES 



lerus, a satire on affectation In learning, written by John Arbuth- 
not In 1 7 12. The hero had read everything, but had neither 
taste nor judgment. 

1 88, I. San-greal. The holy Grail. 

2. The valiant Bardolph. See the speech of the Boy in 
Henry F, il, i. 

iQi, I. Portland vase. A very famous urn, probably of 
the first century, B.C. Given by the Duke of Portland to the 
British Museum. 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 

192,1. Westminster Abbey and School. This famous school 
was established by Henry VIII in 1540, and re-established by 
Elizabeth in 1560. It was reorganized In 1868 as one of the great 
public schools. The Westminster Play, a Latin comedy given 
by the scholars, Is famous. 

193, I. Doomsday book. This is one of the oldest, and 
probably by far the most valuable, of English historical records. 
It was prepared under the direction of William the Conqueror 
in 1086. 

195, I. Conversable little tome. Disposed to talk. 

197, I. Well stricken in years. An old phrase. Compare 
Luke i, 7. Notice how Irving suits his language to the antique 
atmosphere of the library. 

The names which follow are those of famous churchmen and 
historians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Wynkyn de 
Worde was the second great English printer, the successor of 
Caxton in the early part of the sixteenth century. 

202, I. Groan with rank and excessive vegetation. Com- 
pare in Milton's "Comus, " lines 720-731. 

203, I. Checks on population spoken of by economists. 
In 18 1 7 Robert Malthus published the final edition of his Essay 
on Population, in which he discusses the forces — war, famine, 
etc. — which tend to check the growth of population. The book 
had created much discussion. 

205, I. Faithful portray er of Nature. Compare Hamlet, ill, 2, 

11. 20ff. 

RURAL FUNERALS 

In midsummer of 1819 Irving sent to America the essays for 
Part Four of The Sketch Book. Among these was "John Bull. " 
Two weeks later he sent this on "Rural Funerals" to take the 



NOTES 551 



place of the "John Bull," which was published later. A letter 
written by Mrs. Hoffman, the mother of Matilda Hoffman, 
indicates that part of the essay was a memory. 

211, I. Rise again in glory. Biblical and in Church rituals. 
See Corinthians xv, 43. 

214, I. Laertes. May violets spring. Hamlet, v, i. 

215, I. Dirge of Jephtha. Dirge of Jephtha's Daughter 
by Herrick (i 591-1674). 

2. Shakespeare. Fidele. Cymbeline, iv, 2. 

216, I. Jeremy Taylor. One of the best-loved of English 
divines; seventeenth century. 

218, I. Whitsuntide. The church festival, fifty days after 
Easter. In early Christian times this season was ranked with 
Christmas and Easter as a time of merriment. 

THE INN KITCHEN 

For other descriptions of inns, see Christmas sketches, and 
"The Stout Gentleman," in Bracebridge Hall. Compare other 
inns, in Silas Marner, Pickwick Papers, The Deserted Village, 
David Copperfield, chapter ii. 

227, I. Ecume de men Foam of the sea. The same as 
German meerschaum. 

The sketch serves simply as an imaginative introduction to 
"The Spectre Bridegroom." The character is Geoffrey Crayon. 
Irving visited the Netherlands during his first trip to Europe 
in 1804-06. He may here have drawn from life, as he so fre- 
quently did. 

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 

Perhaps the introduction of this German subject may be 
accounted for by the fact that, during the summer of 181 8, 
Irving had taken up vigorously the study of German. In spirit 
and manner this tale is, of all the Sketches, the closest of kin to 
the earlier History of New York. There is in it the same daring 
challenge to our credulity, the same bold bearding of respectable 
old ghosts and titles in their very lairs, without the saving realism 
in setting and characterization that is found in " Rip Van Winkle" 
and "Sleepy Hollow," and in a few passages in the History. 
Perhaps Irving's greater degree of familiarity with the material 
of his two great stories accounts for the difference pointed out. 

230, 1. Heldenbuch. A fifteenth century collection of popu- 
lar epic poems, concerned with the heroic legends of Germany. 



552 NOTES 

2. Minnelieders. The Minnesanger, that is, the love poets 
of mediaeval Germany. 

231, I. Wasting their sweetness. See the familiar line in 
Gray's Elegy. 

2. Poor relations. Lamb's Essay on this subject should be 
read. 

233, I. Rhein-wein and Ferne-wein. Native and old wines. 
2. Heidelburg tun. A great wine vat built in the castle of 

Heidelberg in 1751. 

234, I. Saus and braus. Riot and revelry. 

241, I. Hockheimer. The town of Hochheim in Germany 
is famous for its wine trade. English Hock is Rhine wine. 

242, I. Leonora. Lenore. A popular German ballad of 
the eighteenth century, in which a goblin horseman carries off 
the heroine. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

This essay is the product of a mood very characteristic of the 
author. It is a mood of solemn reverie through which the beauty 
of the old Abbey drifts like the beams of mellow autumn sun- 
shine. 

250, I. Melancholy days. Compare the phrase in Bryant's 
"Death of the Flowers." 

2. From the inner court. That is, from the southwest, 
where the Westminster School is situated. The usual entrance 
to the Abbey is from the North. See "The Mutability of Liter- 
ature." 

253, I. Vanity of human ambition. Compare many lines 
in Gray's Elegy. 

258, I. Knights of the Bath. This order was founded by 
George I in 1725, and was wrongly supposed to be a revival of 
a very old order, 

2, Gothic. This style of architecture is characterized by 
the pointed arch and elaborate decoration, the style of the 
churches of Northern and Central Europe arising during the 
Middle Ages. 

260, I. Oppressor with the oppressed. See Job iii, 18, 19. 

2. Elizabeth and Mary. Later historians give a rather 
different notion of the comparative virtues of these two queens. 

262. I. Edward the Confessor. King 1 043-1 066. He se- 
cured a reputation for sanctity rather than for kingliness. He 
is regarded as the founder of Westminster Abbey, though there 
was a church on this location much earlier. The church wa§ 



LEGEND 

1 SHRINE OF THE CONFESSOH 

2 TOMB OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 

3 TOMB OF QUEEN MARY 

4 TOMBS OF KINGS & QUEENS 




GROUND PLAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

553 



554 NOTES 



called the West Minster to distinguish it from St. Paul's in 
London. 

2. Gothic age. A rude age. This was the sense first at- 
tached to the word. 

Students will find excellent accounts of the Abbey, with many 
illustrations, in Westminster Abbey, by Francis Bond, H. Frowde, 
publisher, 1909. Westminster Abbey by Charles Hiatt, in 
Bell's Cathedral Series is compact and useful. For the famous 
people buried in the Abbey, see The Roll- Call of Westminster 
Abbey, by E. T. Bradley, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1902. 

CHRISTMAS 

270, I. Sherris sack of Falstaff. The reference is to 2 
Henry IV, iv, 3, where Falstaff discourses of "sherris." The 
term was applied to a kind of dry (sec meaning dry) wine origi- 
nally imported from Xeres, Spain, whence sherry. 

272,1. Waits. Bands of men and boys parading the streets of 
villages on the nights preceding Christmas, singing carols and 
expecting gifts at the houses. Originally the Wait may have 
been a watchman required to sound on some instrument at 
stated times during the night. In old French, the word means 
a guard or sentinel. 

2. Telling the night watches. Milton's Comus, i, 347. 

3. Ever 'gainst that season comes. Hamlet, i, i. 

273, I. Stranger and sojourner. A frequent phrase in some 
books of the Old Testament. See Leviticus xxv, 23. 

THE STAGE COACH 

Like the inns, the stage coach and the coachmen have been 
favorite themes with English writers. Irving was in England 
when coaching was at the height of its glory, just before the 
advent of the railway. For other descriptions, see David Copper- 
field, ch. V, and xix; Pickwick, ch. xxiii, and xxvii. 

Read "Going Down with Victory" in De Quincey's English 
Mailcoach. 

279, I. Square it among. Provincial English, meaning to 
strut or swagger, 

CHRISTMAS EVE 

288, I. The little dogs, and all. Lear, m, 6. 
290, I. Oxonian. An Oxford man, from the Latin name for 
Oxford, Oxonia, 



NOTES 553 

291, I. Overwhelming fireplace. This seems to be an 
obsolete use of the word, in its meaning of overhanging. 

293, I. Master Simon. He figures prominently in the later 
Bracebridge Hall. 

CHRISTMAS DAY 

306, I. Izaac Walton. 1 593-1 683. A London shop-keeper 
until the civil wars. His Complete Angler is the most famous 
of books on fishing. See "The Angler. " 

308, I. Black-letter. The kind of type used in the earliest 
printed books; thus: Hnclcnt Cbristmae. 

309, I. Fathers of the Church. A title of honor given to 
the early writers and teachers of the Church. Theophilus and 
others named in a following paragraph are so called. 

311, I. A cloud more. See Hebrews xii, i, "a cloud of 
witnesses." 

312, I. Prynne and the Round Heads. Prynne was one of 
the most prominent figures of the Commonwealth period, per- 
secuted by both parties. 

314, I. Duke Humphry. To dine with Duke Humphrey 
meant to go without dinner. The phrase is explained as origi- 
nally applied to those promenaders in the old "Walk" in St. 
Paul's who remained there without going to dinner, presumably 
because they lacked the money. A popular notion connected 
a statue of the "Good Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, " who was 
famous for his hospitality, with this aisle of the church, though 
it was really never set up there. 

2. Squire Ketch. More frequently "Jack Ketch." This 
seems to have been the name of a hangman of the seventeenth 
century, and it came afterward to be a synonym for hangman. 

316, I. Public discontent. The movement for popular 
liberty was just beginning in England, at the time these essays 
were written, and Irving has several passing references to the 
condition. Periods of business depression followed the close of 
the Napoleonic wars, which aided in fermenting the popular 
discontent. 

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 

320, I. Belshazzar's parade of the vessels. See Daniel v, 
63. In 1 81 7 and 18 18 Washington Allston and Irving exchanged 
several letters in which reference is made to a painting Allston 
was working on, entitled " Belshazzar. " Irving's references to 



556 NOTES 

it show that the conception had strongly impressed him. In 
this way we may discover how the materials for the essays were 
lying in the author's mind, needing only to be written out. 

321, I. Holbein and Diirer. German engravers and painters 
of the sixteenth century. Holbein spent the greater part of the 
time from 1527-1537 in England, and painted many portraits of 
Englishmen. His "Family of Sir Thomas More" is famous. 

323, I. The Boar's Head. There is a local legend of Queen's 
College, Oxford, to the effect that, "Some five hundred years ago 
a student of the college wandering near Shotover Hill in deep 
study of Aristotle was attacked by a wild boar. Having no 
other means of defence, he shoved his book down the animal's 
throat, exclaiming, GrcBCum est! The sage choked the savage, 
and his head was brought home in triumph by the student." 
Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs, p. 133. 

331, I. Out of Joe Miller. A stale joke. Joe Miller's 
Jests appeared first in 1739. The book was by John Mottley. 
The real Joseph Miller was said never to have made a joke in his 
life. 

332, I . Fairies about Falstaff. See Merry Wives, v. Scenes 4, 5. 
335, I. Ancient Christmas, etc. In Jonson's Masque of 

Christmas, referred to in Irving's note, "Old Christmas" enters 
with a retinue including Misrule, Carol, Mincepie, Gambol, 
Post and Pair, New Years Gift, Mumming, Wassel, Offering, 
Baby-cake. 

In The Book of Days will be found a specimen of a Christmas 
Mumming Drama of South Wales. 

In the Life and Letters, vol. ii, p. 220, is given a letter from 
Mr. Irving, in which he describes a visit to Barlborough Hall, 
where he saw all the old Christmas customs he had described in 
The Sketch Book, 

LONDON ANTIQUES 

This essay is a record of a bit of exploration made during three 
weeks spent in London in the midsummer of 181 7. In a letter 
to his friend Brevoort, of August 28, 181 7, he says: "I was in 
London for about three weeks, when the town was quite deserted. 
I found, however, sufficient objects of curiosity and interest to 
keep me in a worry; and amused myself by exploring various 
parts of the city, which in the dirt and gloom of winter would be 
almost inaccessible. " 

It is probable that at this time he had rooms in Bartholomew's 
Close, Little Britain, and that he is really the original of the 
"odd-looking old gentleman" of the following sketch. 



NOTES 557 

341, I. Chapel of the Knights Templars. The student will 
find some interesting material in The Temple Church, a little 
book by T. Henry Baylis, published in 1893. The "Round 
Church," the characteristic building of the Templars, was built 
in 1 185. About 1240 the Choir was added. The Temple 
includes the extensive buildings around the Church, which, since 
1346, have been occupied by the "doctors and students of the 
law." The student will recall the part the Templars play in 
Ivanhoe. 

346, I. Charter House. The original Carthusian monastery 
^vas established here in 1371. The school has, since Irving's 
time, been moved to Godalming in Surrey. Its place is occupied 
by The Merchant Taylor's School, another very old institution. 

LITTLE BRITAIN 

349, I. Dukes of Brittany. The district in the north of 
France, which in very early times received colonists from across 
the Channel and was called Little Britain, came into the hands 
of a son of Henry H in the twelfth century. 

352, I. Shrove Tuesday. The day preceding Lent, anciently 
a day for confession and absolution, "shriving." Pancakes and 
Shrove Tuesday are inextricably intermingled In popular lore. 
The tossing of the pancake is one of the interesting customs of 
Westminster School. 

2. Lions in the Tower. Animals presented to the king were 
formxerly kept in the Tower of London. 

3. Giants. These are two large effigies, which are intimately 
connected with city tradition. They used to form a feature of 
the Lord Mayor's procession and of other popular shows. The 
present images were made in 1708 to replace others destroyed 
in the Great Fire of 1666. According to an old legend, they are 
images of two survivors of a race of wicked giants, who, after 
their brothers were slain by Brute and his companions, were 
brought to London and either chained or made to serve as 
porters at the gate of the royal palace. After their death the 
images were set up. There are several other similar accounts. 

_ Similar images, it may be noted, were formerly kept in other 
cities, notably Antwerp and Douai. 

353, I. Mother Shipton in the sixteenth and Robert Nixon in 
the seventeenth century were popular "prophets." 

354, I. Radical meetings, etc. For other references to the 
political disturbances of the time see "John Bull." 

2. Bloody scenes at Manchester. On August 16, 1819, in 
St. Peter's Fields, near Manchester, the military, in dispersing 



558 NOTES 

a crowd of artisans gathered to listen to speeches advocating 
universal suffrage and other reforms, killed and wounded a num- 
ber. Thomas Carlyle referred ironically to this event as the 
battle of Peterloo. 

3. Plot in Cato Street. After the accession of George IV, 
when hopes of a reform policy seemed lost, a plot to murder the 
cabinet while at dinner was discovered. The plotters met in a 
loft in Cato Street. 

355, I. Whittington and his cat. Richard Whittington 
(1358-1423) was not three but four times Lord Mayor. The 
story of the cat has been explained as the outcome of a popular 
tradition of the great merchant s success by way of the word 
acat or achaf., a corrupt French word of the fourteenth century, 
meaning purchase or barter. 

359, I. Lord Mayor's Day. See note on "The Country 
Church," p. 153. 

361, I. Temple Bar. Is one of the several famous "bars" or 
gates of the outer city of London. Temple Bar was so named 
from its proximity to the Outer Temple. It marked the limit 
of London in the direction of Westminster. The custom long 
held for the monarch to halt at Temple Bar, when on a visit to 
the city, and ask of the Lord Mayor permission to enter. 

364, I. Kean, the opera. When Irving was writing The 
Sketch Book Kean, the noted Shakespearean actor, was playing 
in London, and the author's letters frequently refer to him, as 
well as to the new operas. 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON 

371, 1. The poker his sceptre. The following is from a letter 
written in 1832, telling of a little tour with Mr. Van Buren (after- 
ward President) who had just been appointed Minister to 
England : 

"We next passed a night and part of the next day at Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, visiting the house where Shakespeare was born 
and the church where he lies buried. We were quartered at the 
little inn of the Red Horse, where I found the same obliging 
little landlady that kept it at the time of the visit recorded in 
The Sketch Book. You cannot imagine what a fuss the little 
woman made when she found out who I was. She showed me 
the room I had occupied, in which she had hung up my engraved 
likeness, and she produced a poker which was locked up in the 
archives of her house, on which she had caused to be engraved, 
"Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre." 
^ 2. Take mine ease, i Henry IV, iii, 3. 



NOTES 559 



381, I. Shallow. The Justice In Merry Wives and 2 Henry 
IV. 

387, I. Jaques. See As You Like It, II, i, 7. 

388, I. Under the greenwood tree, etc. See As You Like 
It, ii, 5. 

389, I. A goodly dwelling, etc. 2 Henry IV, v, 3. 

396, I. Gentle Master Slender and Sweet Anne Page. For 
these scenes see Merry Wives of Windsor. See note under 
"Sleepy Hollow," p. 563. There Is more than a suggestion of 
likeness between Slender and Ichabod of "Sleepy Hollow." 

TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER AND PHILIP OF POKANOKET 

See Int., p. 9, for Information about the publication of these 
two essays. 

One should read some of Irving's paragraphs of satire on the 
early treatment of the Indians in the History of New York, i, 
ch. V. The character of the Indian as Irving seems to conceive 
him may be compared with that given him by Cooper. 

The story of Philip has been told In several histories of the 
time, to which the reader may refer. See American History 
Told by Contemporaries, Hart, vol. i, pp. 458-461. 

Old South Leaflets, No. 88. This contains another contem- 
porary account. The story in Cotton Mather, Magnolia Christi, 
Bk. 7, ch. 6, is in interesting contrast to Irving's tale. 

On the subject of Indian Traits, the reader should remember 
that Irving wrote at a time when he had probably been somewhat 
affected by a certain enthusiasm for the habits and character of 
primitive tribes, which was a part of the romantic enthusiasm 
for human freedom which characterized the literature of the 
period. The modern scientific Interest In the subject, with its 
more careful studies, had not yet come. But it is not improbable 
that the attitude of Irving is not far from truth and justice. A 
recent work by Dr. Charles A. Eastman on The Soul of The 
hidian, Houghton, Mifflin, 191 1, may be referred to with profit. 

JOHN BULL 

See Int., p. 14, for suggestion as to the character of this essay. 

The development of the conception of John Bull embodied In 
this caricature seems to begin with Arbuthnot's The History of 
John Bull, or Law is A Bottomless Pit, published in 17 12. John 
Bull, or The Englishman s Fireside, a comedy, was played by 
Coleman, the younger In 1805. In 1812 Paulding sent to Irving 
a copy of his Diverting History of John Bull and His Brother Jona- 



56o NOTES 



than. The theme was a familiar one for both writers and artists 
of the time; indeed our present conception of the character 
belongs to this period. The entire picture should be compared 
with those of the country gentlemen of Irving's other papers. 
The essay contains frequent references to the social and economic 
difficulties of the time, and to the growing radicaHsm. 

449, I. The obstreperous conduct of one of his sons. Per- 
haps "Orator Hunt," who was a popular agitator of the time, 
always managing to keep himself out of trouble. 

450, I. Son Tom. Tommy Atkins, the nickname of the 
British soldier. After the close of the Napoleonic wars in 181 5, 
many officers were home on half-pay. 

452, I. Pockets . . . empty. From 1797 to 1 821 'Bank of Eng- 
land notes were not redeemable in gold. 

453, I. Remain quietly at home. Has he followed this advice? 

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 

456, I . Earth to earth, etc. Church ritual for burial. 
2. Rachel. See Matthew ii, 18. 

457, I. Prettiest low-bom lass, etc. Twelfth Night, iv, 4. 

458, I. May-day. Read Tennyson's "Queen of the May." 
Compare note on "A Royal Poet," p. 546. 

THE ANGLER 

When sending the manuscript of this essay to America, Irving 
wrote to his brother: "It is a sketch drawn almost entirely from 
life; and therefore, if it has no other merit, it has that of truth 
and nature." 

467, I. Izaak Walton. See note under "Christmas Day," p. 

555. 

2 . Don Quixote. The hero of the Spanish romance of that title. 

468, I. La Mancha. Don Quixote, Part i, book 3, ch. 9. 
2. Highlands of the Hudson. This adventure occurred in 

the summer of 1810, when Irving with several friends was at 
the house of Captain Phillips, another of a group formerly called 
by Irving "The Lads of Kilkenny." It was his friend Brevoort 
who was so elaborately equipped. The rest of the essay is per- 
haps for the most part a recollection of a little tour into Derby- 
shire with his brother Peter in 18 16. 

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 

Late in December, 18 19, when sending to his brother Ebenezer 
the sixth part of The Sketch Book, Irving writes: "There is a 



NOTES 561 



Knickerbocker which may please from its representation of 
American scenes. It is a random thing, suggested by recollec- 
tions of scenes and stories about Tarry town. The story is a 
mere whimsical band to connect descriptions of scenery, customs, 
manners, etc." 

"The outline of this story," says his biographer, Pierre M. 
Irving, "had been sketched more than a year before at Birming- 
ham, after a conversation with his brother-in-law. Van Wart, 
who had been dwelling upon some recollections of his early years 
at Tarrytown, and had touched upon a waggish fiction of one 
Brom Bones, a wild blade, who professed to fear nothing, and 
boasted of his having once met the devil on a return from a 
nocturnal frolic, and run a race with him for a bowl of milk 
punch. The imagination of the author suddenly kindled over 
the recital, and in a few hours he had scribbled off the framework 
of his renowned story, and was reading it to his sister and her 
husband. He then threw it by until he went up to London, where 
it was expanded into the present legend." L. and L., i, 347. 

The following passage occurs in the sketch of Sleepy Hollow, 
in Wolfert's Roost. The author is telling of the researches of 
Diedrich Knickerbocker in Sleepy Hollow. 

''The worthy Diedrich pursued his researches with character- 
istic devotion; entering familiarly into the various cottages, and 
gossiping with the simple folk, in the style of their own simplicity. 
I confess my heart yearned with admiration to see so great a man, 
in his eager quest after knowledge humbly demeaning himself to 
curry favor with the humblest; sitting patiently on a three- 
legged stool, patting the children, and taking a purring grimalkin 
on his lap, while he conciliated the good-will of the old Dutch 
housewife, and drew from her long ghost stories, spun out to the 
humming accompaniment of her wheel. 

"His greatest treasure of historic lore, however, was discovered 
in an old goblin-looking mill, situated among rocks and water- 
falls, with clanking wheels, and rushing streams, and all kinds 
of uncouth noises. A horseshoe, nailed to the door to keep ofif 
witches and evil spirits, showed that this mill was subject to 
awful visitations. As we approached it, an old negro thrust 
his head, all dabbled with flour, out of a hole above the water- 
wheel, and grinned, and rolled his eyes, and looked like the very 
hobgoblin of the place. The illustrious Diedrich fixed upon him, 
at once, as the very one to give him that invaluable kind of 
information never to be acquired from books. He beckoned him 
from his nest, sat with him by the hour on a broken millstone, 
by the side of the waterfall, heedless of the noise of the water 
and the clatter of the mill; and I verily believe it was to his 
36 



562 : NOTES 

conference with this African sage, and the precious revelations 
of the good dame of the spinning-wheel, that we are indebted for 
the surprising though true history of Ichabod Crane and the head- 
less horseman, which has since astonished and edified the world. " 
484, I. Ichabod Crane. Irving spent two months in 1809,] 
after the death of Matilda Hoffman, in the country at Kinder- 
hook. In 1 851, he received a letter from Jesse Merwin, whom he 
had met during that time. This letter was indorsed by Irving 
as "From Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichabod Crane." In 
his reply to it, he says, among other things: 

"Your letter was indeed mo c welcome — calling up as it did, 
the recollection of pleasant scenes and pleasant days passed 
together in times long since at Judge Van Ness's, at Kinder- 
hook. , . . 

"You tell me the old schoolhouse is torn down, and a new one 
built in its place. I am sorry for it. I should like to have seen 
the old schoolhouse once more, where, after my morning's liter- 
ary task was over, I used to come and wait for you occasionally 
until school was dismissed, and you used to promise to keep back 
the punishment of some little, tough, broad-bottomed Dutch 
boy until I should come, for my amusement — but never kept 
your promise. I don't think I should look with a friendly eye 
on the new schoolhouse, however nice it might be. . . . " 

2. Connecticut. One should read in the History of New York 
the account of the ways of the Connecticut pioneer, and his 
over-riding of the Dutchman. 

485, I. Spare the rod. Quoted from a dull poem of the 
seventeenth century, Butler's Hudibras, II, i, 1. 843. See also 
Proverbs xiii, 24. 

487, I . The lion bold. ... the lamb did hold. Phrases sug- 
gested by the famous New England Primer, which, under the 
guise of such doggerel rhymes, doled out to the youth of its day 
the rudiments of learning. 

488, I. A man of some importance. Cornpare Goldsmith's 
picture of the schoolmaster in The Deserted Village. 

2 . Cotton Mather's New England Witchcraft. This refers to a 
part of the great work of this famous old New England preacher, 
Magnalia Christi Americana, a Church History of New England. 
The last two books contain the information Irving refers to. 

490, I. In linked sweetness long drawn out. Milton's; 
"L'Allegro," 1. 140. 

This is one of those unfortunate lines of poetry, which, beauti- 
ful in their original settings, have been turned to all sorts of 
ludicrous uses. It happens that in a letter received by Irving 
at Birmingham during the visit when he sketched this story, 



NOTES 563 

Washington Allston, in speaking of Master Slender in Leslie's 
new picture, writes, "Slender, also, is very happy; he is a good 
parody on Milton's 'linked sweetness long drawn out.' " See 
note under " Stratford-on-Avon, " p. 559. 

498, I. Rantipole hero. A word of uncertain derivation, 
perhaps from rant, to behave boisterously, and poll, head. It is 
dialect in North of England for see-saw. 

499, I. Admiration. The word is used in its Latin sense, 
wo?ider. 

501, I. Rough riders. Sleepy Hollow and its vicinity, says 
Irving in the Chrojiicle of Wolfert's Roost, was debatable land 
during the Revolution. He tells further of two bands, the Skin- 
ners and the Cowboys, the former of which was American, the 
latter, British, and of how there was organized in the neighbor- 
hood, with Jacob Van Tassel, then the owner of The Roost, 
"a confederacy with certain of the bold, hard-riding lads of 
Tarrytown, Petticoat Lane, and Sleepy Hollow, who formed a 
kind of Holy Brotherhood, scouring the country to clear it of 
Skinner and Cowboy, and all other border vermin. The Roost 
was one of their rallying points. Did a band of marauders froni 
Manhattan island come sweeping through the neighbourhood and 
driving off cattle, the stout Jacob and his compeers were soon 
clattering at their heels, and fortunate did the rogues esteem 
themselves if they could get but a part of their booty across the 
lines or escape themselves without a rough handling. Should 
the mosstroopers succeed in passing with their cavalgada, with 
thundering tramp and dusty whirlwind, across Kingsbridge, the 
Holy Brotherhood of the Roost would rein up at that perilous 
pass, and, wheeling about, would indemnify themselves by 
foraging the refugee region of Morrisania. " 

507, I. The Dutch tea-table. Compare a similar passage 
in the _ History of New York, iii, ch. iii. Irving's cottage, 
Sunnyside, had been owned by a family of Van Tassels. 

511, I. Major Andre. The story should be familiar to every 
boy and girl. 

514, I. The very witching time of night. Hamlet, iii, 2. 

523, I. ^ Ten Pound Court. A court authorized to try cases 
not involving property of more than ten pounds in value. 

l'envoy 

527, I. L'Envoy. The Sending. The author's formal send- 
ing forth of his book. 

2. La Belle Dame Sans Mercie. Chaucer. This poem is 
probably not the work of Chaucer. 



QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR STUDY 

The following questions may be regarded as supplementary to 
the references and suggestions given in the Notes. They should 
be helpful by way of directing to a mastery of the plan and 
structure of the essays and a correspondingly clearer grasp of 
the content. 

In order to overcome the difficulty arising from the variety 
of subjects among the essays, the teacher should follow closely 
the groupings suggested in the Introduction (pp. 13-14) and 
also the cross references and comparisons called for in the Study 
Topics and the Notes. Such comparative study is necessary 
if the pupil is to get a unified notion of Irving's work. 

THE author's account OF HIMSELF 

1. What dreams of the author's boyhood were realized in 

later years? 

2. Do the reasons he gives for desiring to visit Europe still 

hold good for an American? 

3. How does the author introduce the title of his volume? 

THE VOYAGE 

1. Suppose Irving going from New York to Liverpool to-day; 

how do you think his experience on board ship would 
differ from that which he describes in this essay? 

2. How is the account of the voyage introduced: by sen- 

tences about this particular voyage or about voyages in 
general? 

3. What suggestions of subjects of the following essays do 

you find here? 

ROSCOE 

1. What do you think most strongly attracted the author to 

Mr. Roscoe? 

2. Describe the method which Irving uses to introduce his 

subject. 

3. Is any moral drawn in the sketch? 

564 



TOPICS FOR STUDY 565 



THE WIFE 

1. What do you think most interested Irving in this subject? 

2. How would such a situation be handled to-day in a short 

story? 

RIP VAN WINKLE 

1. How does the author prepare the reader for his story? 

(Read the quotation from Irving in the Introduction [p. 15] 
about his method of work.) 

2. Where (with what paragraph) does the action of the story 

begin? 

3. What is the effect for you of the description of the "fairy 

mountains" in the first paragraph? Do you think that 
on that "fine autumnal day" Rip was interested in the 
scene? 

4. Joseph Jefferson, on the stage, gave Rip a somewhat 

poetical nature. Does Irving's portrait give any reason 
for this interpretation? 

5. How does Irving bridge the gap between Rip's falling 

asleep and his awakening? 

6. On Rip's return to the village, how are the details of his 

experience made to contrast with those of his former 
popularity? 

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 

1. What type of writing found in the other sketches is lack- 

ing in this essay? 

2. What is Irving's suggestion as to the way to avoid the 

difficulty he points out? 

RURAL LIFE 

1. What advantages for a nation does Irving find in a country 

life enjoyed by all classes? 

2. How are the first two paragraphs used to introduce the 

subject? 

THE BROKEN HEART 

What likeness in plan do you find between this sketch and 
"The Wife"? 



566 TOPICS FOR STUDY 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 

1. Describe the method used in the first paragraph to intro- 

duce the subject, 

2. What is the story running through the sketch? 

3. What is the effect of the repetition of the word familiar? 

A ROYAL POET 

1. How does the author prepare the way for his theme? 

2. In the account of the origin of the " King's Quair," do you 

find anything that reminds you of Irving's own way of 
beginning one of his sketches? 

3. What is the narrative that binds this whole sketch together? 

4. What other stories are suggested in the sketch? 

THE COUNTRY CHURCH 

1. What is the part assumed by the author in this sketch? 

2. In what other of the essays have you found the same 

character assumed? 

THE WIDOW AND HER SON 

With what others of the essays can you class this in subject and 
plan of composition? 

THE boar's HEAD TAVERN 

1. What quality do you notice in the introduction of this 

sketch that makes it different from those that precede it? 

2. What is the object of the author's ridicule in the essay? 

3. Trace the author's route on the map (p. 548). 

4. What is the author's attitude toward old so-called relics 

and traditions? In what other essays do you find him 
assuming this mood? 

MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 

1. What mood is suggested by the author's introductory 

paragraph? 

2. What means are used to unify all these observations about 

old and forgotten books? 



TOPICS FOR STUDY 567 



RURAL FUNERALS 

What use of narrative is made in this essay? 

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 

1. What purpose does the sketch of "The Inn Kitchen" 

serve here? 

2. How is the way prepared for the story? 

3. Where does the action of the story really begin? 

4. What resemblances do you notice, in theme and plan, 

between this story and "Rip Van Winkle"? 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

1. Trace the author's path through the Abbey on the Plan 

(P- 553)- 

2. How does the author impress upon the reader the atmos- 

phere of the Abbey as he saw it? 

3. In what mood does the author leave the building? 

4. What had Irving seen in Westminster Abbey? 

CHRISTMAS 

1. Where did Irving get his material for these Christmas 

Essays? 

2. Taking the entire group together, what do you find to have 

been the author's plan of composition? 

3. What figures might you take from the Christmas company 

at Bracebridge Hall, as central characters for some Christ- 
mas stories? (See letter in Introduction, p. 15, about the 
plan of Irving's Bracebridge Hall.) 

LONDON ANTIQUES AND LITTLE BRITAIN 

1. Who is "7" in these two papers? See Introduction and 

Notes. 

2. There is some satire in "Little Britain." At what is it 

directed? 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON 

I. What similarity do you find between the moods of the 
author in this sketch and in "The Boar's Head Tavern "? 



568 TOPICS FOR STUDY 

2. What had Irving expected to find In Stratford and Its 

neighborhood? Was his search successful? What evi- 
dence in the essay? 

3. What equipment had the author for an appreciative visit 

to Stratford? 

4. What inpression of Shakespeare, as man and poet, do you 

get from this essay? 

5. Does Irving write as a student or as a lover of Shakespeare? 

(For the following five sketches, see the Notes for suggestions 
as to study and questions.) 

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 

1. In what ways is the introduction of this tale like that of 

"Rip Van Winkle"? Point out differences between this 
introduction and that of "The Spectre Bridegroom." 

2. What are the different phrases with which Irving con- 

trives to place before the reader the character of Sleepy 
Hollow? 

3. Where in the tale does the actual action of the story begin? 

4. What descriptions of characters and places have been given 

up to this point as preparatory to the story? 

5. In this tale Irving approaches somewhat more nearly 

than in other sketches the form of a short-story plot. 
What would be such a plot, with Katrina as the central 
figure? With Brom Bones? 



MERRILL'S ENGLISH TEXTS 

COMPLETE EDITIONS 

Addison, Steele, and Budgell — The Sir Roger 

de Coverley Papers in ' 'The Spectator' ' . . .30 

Browning — Poems 25 

Bunyan — Pilgrim's Progress, Part I 40 

Byron — Childe Harold, Canto IV, and The 

Prisoner of Chillon 25 

Carlyle — An Essay on Burns 25 

Coleridge — The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 

and other Poems 25 

Coleridge— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 

and Lowell — The Vision of Sir Launfal, 

Combined 40 

Defoe — Robinson Crusoe, Part I 50 

De Quincey — Joan of Arc, and The English 

Mail Coach 25 

Dickens— A Tale of Two Cities 50 

Eliot, George — Silas Marner 40 

Emerson — Essays (Selected) 40 

Goldsmith — The Deserted Village and other 

Poems 25 

Goldsmith— The Vicar of Wakefield 30 

Gray — An Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 

and Goldsmith — The Deserted Village, 

Combined 30 

Hale — The Man Without a Country, and My 

Double, and How He Undid Me 25 

Hawthorne — The House of the Seven Gables . 40 
Homer— The Odyssev, Books VI to XIV, 

XVIII to XXiv. "^(Enghsh translation) .50 



Irving — The Sketch Book 50 

Lamb — Essays of Elia 50 

Lincohi — Selections 25 

Lowell — The Vision of Sir Launfal 25 

Macaulay — Essays on Lord Clive and Warren 

Hastings 40 

Macaulay — Essay on Samuel Johnson ... .25 
Macaulay — Lays of Ancient Rome, and Ar- 
nold — Sohrab and Rustum, Combined . . .30 
Milton — Lycidas, Comus, L'Allegro, II Pen- 

seroso, and other Poems 25 

Palgrave— Golden Treasury (First Series) . .40 

Parkman — The Oregon Trail 50 

Poe — The Raven, Longfellow — The Court- 
ship of Miles Standish, and Whittier — 

Snow Bound, Combined 25 

Scott — Ivanhoe 50 

Shakespeare — A Midsummer Night's Dream .25 

Shakespeare — As You Like It 25 

Shakespeare — Julius Caesar 25 

Shakespeare — King Henry V 25 

Shakespeare— Macbeth 25 

Shakespeare — Merchant of Venice 25 

Shakespeare — Twelfth Night 25 

Stevenson — An Inland Voyage and Travels 

with a Donkey 40 

Stevenson — Treasure Island 40 

Tennyson — Idylls of the King 30 

Thoreau— Walden .50 

Wasliington — Farewell Address, and Web- 
ster — First Bunker Hill Oration 25 



Graded Supplementary 
Reading Series 



Classic Fables. For First and Second Grades. 
Selected and edited by Edna Henry Lee 
Turpin. 127 pages, 12mo, cloth 30 cents 

Grimm's Fairy Tales. For Second and Third 
Grades. Selected and edited by Edna Henry 
Lee Turpin. 207 pages, 12mo, cloth 40 cents 

Andersen's Fairy Tales. For Third and Fourth 
Grades. Selected and edited by Edna Henry 
Lee Turpin. 253 pages, 12mo, cloth 40 cents 

Stories from American History. For Fourth 
and Fifth Grades. Selected and edited by 
Edna Henry Lee Turpin. 191 pages, 12mo, 
cloth 40 cents 

Stories from Greek History. For Fourth and 
Fifth Grades. By Louise Diman. 239 pages, 
12mo, cloth 40 cents 

Heroes of History. For Fifth and Sixth Grades. 
By Ida Prentice Whitcomb. 448 pages, 
12mo, cloth 60 cents 

Brief Biographies from American History. 

For Fifth and Sixth Grades. By Edna Henry 

Lee Turpin. 299 pages, 12mo, cloth 50 cents 

Part L For Fifth Grade. 142 pages, 12mo, 

cloth 35 cents 

Part n. For Sixth Grade. 163 pages, l2mo, 

cloth 35 cents 

English History Stories. For Sixth and Seventh 

Grades. 320 pages, 12mo, cloth 50 cents 

The Young American. A Civic Reader. For 
Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Grades. By Harry 
Pratt Judson, LL.D. 259 pages, 12mo, cloth 50 cents 



ABERNETHY'S 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

By JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, Ph.D. 
Formerly Principal of Berkeley Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

514 pages, 12mo, cloth. Price ;Sl.lO 

The author's long and conspicuously successful experience 
as a teacher and the time and thought he has devoted to the 
work encourage us to believe that this book will be particularly 
adapted to the varying needs of his fellow teachers. 

The plan of the book includes a brief account of the growth 
of our literature considered as part of our national history, with 
such biographical and critical material as will best make the 
first-hand study of American authors interesting and profitable. 

One of the most interesting features of the book is the supple- 
menting of the author's critical estimates of the value of the 
work of the more important American writers with opinions 
quoted from contemporary sources. Other strong points are 
the attention given to more recent contributions to American 
literature and the fact that Southern literature is accorded a 
consideration commensurate with its interest and value. 

The pedagogical merit of the book is indicated by the care 
which has been given to the production of a teaching apparatus 
which is at once simple and entirely adequate. At the end of 
each chapter, two lists of selections are provided for each im- 
portant author, one for critical study, the other for outside 
reading. Lists of reading material for the historical back- 
ground also are given. Study along the lines indicated will lead 
to a closer correlation of history and literature than is usually 
secured, and to a more just appreciation of the literature. 

The books included in the list at the end of the work con- 
stitute an ample and fairly complete library of biography and 
criticism for students of American literature. 

CHARLES W. KENT, M. A., Ph. D., Linden Kent 
Memorial School of English Literature, IJniversity of 
Virginia, writes: 

I am sufficiently pleased with Abemethy's American Litera- 
ture to adopt it for use in my class next session. This I have 
done after a careful examination of nearly all of the college 
text-books on American literature now on the market. v 



57 4 









-^^„\ 



^^^^^ 









./ % 



\0 ':^ 



,0- 



0?-' 













■\^ '7^ 






^0' 



"^^ <^^" 



-- A^'^^-^. 



V^ -^ t: 



:''^^^' ^ 



'X ..\ 















%'^^^ . 



X^ '7^ 



^.% ^-^^c/^ss^'..^ 






P^ 



•.^^■■^l^.^ .^^ 



c,^^^. 






^ ' ^ .-^ .. o s . . -^. 

0^ 






•="'^'%', "".. A^J"" .^r^'^- *- 



'> ^'s 



'"-'-0^ 



■,A^' 






•^v^ :ir--. 



Bf 



\" -c 









%.<^ 










.^°- 



A^' 






*■ V 



A^^'% 












-^^.^Vv^ 



K^" 






